|
The year is 1981, and eighteen-year-old Patricia (Paddy) Meehan is a humble lass from a Catholic working-class family. Engaged to a local boy, Paddy's future seems set. The only problem is that Paddy, who works as a copy "boy" for the city newspaper, has ambitions that reach far above her lowly station --- she desperately wants to be a reporter. "She imagined herself, wearing smart clothes and a miraculous half-foot taller, swaggering into glamorous rooms with a pan-scope stretched body, asking pertinent questions and writing important articles."
But Paddy's reality deviates dramatically from her fantasies; in real life, she is overweight and dumpy, overlooked by her more powerful colleagues. The newsroom is an unfriendly environment for Paddy. In a profession dominated by hard-drinking men, it's hard for a woman to get ahead. Only Paddy's co-worker Heather, who is tall, thin, blonde and college-educated, seems able to write her own ticket, much to Paddy's dismay and jealousy.
When Heather betrays Paddy's confidence following a gruesome murder of a local toddler, Paddy is shunned by her family and her fiancé, who no longer feel they can trust Paddy with their secrets. Paddy, partly because she's genuinely curious and partly because she's out for revenge, begins to investigate the crime herself, using Heather's name instead of her own. The terrible consequences of this decision will rock Paddy's moral sensibilities as well as her career ambitions.
Paddy's story is set against the backdrop of Scotland's Catholic-Protestant conflicts and the general British political situation in the 1980s. Her tale is also interspersed with the story of a more infamous (real-life) Paddy Meehan, a former spy who was wrongfully convicted for a crime in the 1960s and freed based on the evidence of an investigative journalist. Although the eventual connection between the two is tenuous at best, the inclusion of the two stories, as well as the skillful characterization of the younger Paddy's colleagues, does deepen author Denise Mina's exploration of the power of journalism.
As for Paddy's character, readers may grow tired of her constant complaints about her weight and her never-ending efforts to stick to her ridiculous hard-boiled egg diet. She also occasionally seems a little too sharp-tongued and quick-witted for a woman of her age and station, easily trading verbal barbs with her more seasoned colleagues. But the conflict between Paddy's family life and her career goals, as well as her obvious journalistic talents, could mark the start of a successful series.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
 Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
Click here to get the audiobook from Audible.com.
© Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
Back to top.
|
