A brilliant new thriller featuring Paddy Meehan, one of the most praised heroines since Temperance Brennan, from "a rising star in the world of crime fiction" (Laura Miller, Salon). Paddy Meehan is no stranger to murder--as a reporter she lives at crime scenes--but nothing has prepared her for this visit from the police. Her former boyfriend and fellow journalist Terry Patterson has been found hooded and shot through the head. Paddy knows she will be of little help--she had not seen Terry in more than six months. So she is bewildered to learn that in his will he has left her his house and several suitcases full of notes. Drawn into a maze of secrets and lies, Paddy begins making connections to Terry's murder that no one else has seen, and soon finds herself trapped in the most important--and dangerous--story of her career. In their reviews of Slip of the Knife (released as The Last Breath in the UK), critics agreed that Paddy Meehan is one rising star. Comparisons to Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus abound, but these more aptly note the Scottish settings and each protagonist’s esteemed place in the genre rather than their personalities (a grumpy, alienated man versus a spunky woman, close to her working-class, Catholic family). Most critics cited compelling idiomatic dialogue, riveting scenes, and full-blooded characters; reviewers particularly praised Mina’s older, wiser Paddy. While Jennifer Reese of Entertainment Weekly criticized a somewhat hackneyed plot, she, too, acknowledged her “helpless [devotion] to Scotland’s most recent contribution to world civilization: cinder-hearted, character-driven crime fiction.” Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. Denise Mina is the author of The Dead Hour, Field of Blood, Deception, and the Garnethill trilogy, the first installment of which won her the John Creasey Memorial Prize for best first crime novel. She lives in Glasgow.