A savage murder with no apparent motive - DS Morrow's most challenging case brings her work and home lives dangerously close... From the two-time winner of the prestigious Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.

When wealthy Sarah Erroll dies a violent death at her home in a posh part of Glasgow, the local community is stunned by what appears to be a truly gratuitous act. Heavily pregnant with desperately wanted twins, DS Alex Morrow is called in to investigate and soon discovers that there is more to Sarah's murder than it first seems.

On the other side of town, Thomas Anderson is called into the headmaster's office at his boarding school to be told that his tyrannical father - a banker responsible for the loss of many livelihoods in the recession - has committed suicide by hanging himself from the old oak tree on the lawn of their home. Thomas returns to the family home to find his mother and sister in a state of numb shock. The head of the household is dead, yet their initial reaction is not that of grief, but relief.

As Alex Morrow slowly unravels the connections between the two cases, she faces her greatest challenge yet as her work and home lives collide with potentially disastrous consequences.

A savage murder with no apparent motive - DS Morrow's most challenging case brings her work and home lives dangerously close... From the two-time winner of the prestigious Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.

About the Author
After a peripatetic childhood in Glasgow, Paris, London, Invergordon, Bergen and Perth, Denise Mina left school early. Working in a number of dead end jobs, all of them badly, before studying at night school to get into Glasgow University Law School. Denise went on to study for a PhD at Strathclyde, misusing her student grant to write her first novel. This was Garnethill, published in 1998, which won the Crime Writers Association John Creasy Dagger for Best First Crime Novel. She has now published 12 novels and also writes short stories, plays and graphic novels. In 2014 she was inducted into the Crime Writers' Association Hall of Fame. She regularly appears at literary festivals in the UK and abroad, leads masterclasses on writing and was a judge for the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction 2014.

Reviews
One of the most exciting writers to have emerged in Britain for years -- Ian Rankin
A literary West Lothian question: why do Scottish writers dominate British crime fiction? With Denise Mina at least, the answer is pure class * DAILY TELEGRAPH *
Confirms Mina's place in the premier division ... atmospheric, intense and full of the disturbing flavour of inner-city lowlife * GUARDIAN *
Powerful, passionate and compelling. Mina can chill your blood and break your heart in the same sentence -- Mark Billingham
The plot is unrolled artfully ... the writing is lucid, and the minor characters breathe with an almost Dickensian life * SUNDAY TIMES *
Splendidly written ... magnificently readable * THE TIMES *
Something special ... A tour de force * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *
Remember the name. This is a major talent heading for the top * LITERARY REVIEW *
One of Denise Mina's many attractions is her willingness to take risks with her characters. She delves deeper than most into emotions, whether of the police, victims or perpetrators; she eschews the usual formula of crime fiction....The financial and moral disintregration of families, the iniquities of the class system and prostitution all play a role. Mina's best * THE TIMES *
Thoughful attention to detail take the novel to another level...Scotland has produced some seriously good crime writers; THE END OF THE WASP SEASON places Denise Mina alongside Ian Rankin and Val McDermid * FINANCIAL TIMES *
Miss your bus stop....reading THE END OF THE WASP SEASON by Denise Mina, a gripping tale tracing the links between an elite private school, the suicide of a millionaire banker and the shocking murder of a wealthy young woman * GRAZIA *
Denise Mina is one of Scotland's most impressive crime writers. This dark, angry novel doesn't offer easy thrills or the intellectual diversion of a whodunnit. Instead it focuses on its deeply flawed characters, their motivations and the world they live in ... undeniably powerful * SPECTATOR *
One of the most exciting writers to have emerged in Britain for years * Ian Rankin *
A literary West Lothian question: why do Scottish writers dominate British crime fiction? With Denise Mina at least, the answer is pure class * DAILY TELEGRAPH *
Confirms Mina's place in the premier division ... atmospheric, intense and full of the disturbing flavour of inner-city lowlife * GUARDIAN *
Powerful, passionate and compelling. Mina can chill your blood and break your heart in the same sentence * Mark Billingham *
The plot is unrolled artfully ... the writing is lucid, and the minor characters breathe with an almost Dickensian life * SUNDAY TIMES *
Splendidly written ... magnificently readable * THE TIMES *
Something special ... A tour de force * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *
Remember the name. This is a major talent heading for the top * LITERARY REVIEW *
One of Denise Mina's many attractions is her willingness to take risks with her characters. She delves deeper than most into emotions, whether of the police, victims or perpetrators; she eschews the usual formula of crime fiction....The financial and moral disintregration of families, the iniquities of the class system and prostitution all play a role. Mina's best * THE TIMES *
Thoughful attention to detail take the novel to another level...Scotland has produced some seriously good crime writers; The End of the Wasp Season places Denise Mina alongside Ian Rankin and Val McDermid * FINANCIAL TIMES *
Miss your bus stop....reading The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina, a gripping tale tracing the links between an elite private school, the suicide of a millionaire banker and the shocking murder of a wealthy young woman * GRAZIA *
Denise Mina is one of Scotland's most impressive crime writers. This dark, angry novel doesn't offer easy thrills or the intellectual diversion of a whodunnit. Instead it focusses on its deeply flawed characters, their motivations and the world they live in ... undeniably powerful * SPECTATOR *


Awards
Winner of Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2012 (UK).



Book Information
ISBN 9781409150602
Author Denise Mina
Format Paperback
Page Count 432
Imprint Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
Publisher Orion Publishing Co
Weight(grams) 342g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 130mm * 30mm