Set in Glasgow in 1981, a time of hunger strikes, riots and unemployment that decimated the old industrial heartlands, The Field of Blood is the first in the tense Paddy Meehan series from Scotland's princess of crime, Denise Mina. The vicious murder of a young child provides rookie journalist Paddy Meehan with her first big break when the suspect turns out to be her fiancé's 11-year old cousin. Launching her own investigation into the horrific crime, Paddy uncovers lines of deception deep in Glasgow's past, with more horrific crimes in the future if she fails to solve the mystery. Infused with Mina's unique blend of dark humor, personal insights and social injustice, the story grips the reader while challenging our perceptions of childhood innocence, crime and punishment, and right or wrong.

Paddy Meehan thought she'd be farther along in her career as an investigative journalist by now. But three years after breaking a big story, she's still on perpetual night shift, chasing police calls for a story that will promote her out of a twilight existence that makes candy bars and coffee a medical necessity. With her father and brothers unemployed and her family perilously short of money, she needs the work. The domestic dispute at a house in a wealthy suburb seems like nothing unusual - at first. The elegant blonde in the shadows bleeding from a head injury doesn't want any help; and the well-dressed, ingratiating man at the front door tells Paddy everything's fine and that she should leave. And then he asks her to make sure nothing appears in the paper, slipping cash into her hand before he closes the door. The next morning, Paddy sees the lead TV news story: the blonde woman had been tortured, beaten, and left to die. The untraceable man was neither her boyfriend nor her husband, and Paddy can't understand why the victim passed up the chance to walk through the door and live. Far from the spoiled trophy wife Paddy assumed her to be, the victim was a prosecution lawyer with a social conscience that clashed with her privileged background. Soon Paddy begins to make connections no one else has seen, and after she witnesses the body of a suicide being pulled from the river, she finds surprising links between the two deaths. It's the story Paddy's dreamed of, but she'll lose all credibility if word gets out about the bribe. The police who attended the call are twisting the evidence for reasons of their own, and her boss at the newspaper is impatient with Paddy's unproven hunches. Only Paddy cares enough to pursue a dark and brutal truth that could make her career - or kill her.

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 Hewitt 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.