The End of the Wasp Season

Scottish author Denise Mina is a favorite of mine -- not always easy to follow, but then, people are more her thing than a plot.  Both the plot and the people in this second title featuring DS Alexandra Morrow are grim indeed.  The story skips back and forth between two deaths -- bad boy millionaire banker Lars Anderson hangs himself from a tree on his palatial estate, Sarah Erroll is kicked and beaten to death by home invaders.  Dysfunction doesn't even begin to describe both of these people and their families as Alex, five months pregnant with twins, discovers links between the two.  Alex has her own dynamics to deal with after the death of her father, issues with her delinquent nephew and the appeareance of an old friend linked to one of the victims.  Family is the overall theme -- what people will (and won't) do for flesh and blood.  It's a long, dense story and at times my attention wavered, but then I would get pulled back in by the complex characters.