[1] Mina's first Paddy Meehan novel, The Field of Blood (2005), was filmed for broadcast in 2011 by the BBC, starring Jayd Johnson, Peter Capaldi and David Morrissey.

Because of his work, the family moved 21 times in 18 years: from Paris to The Hague, London, Scotland and Bergen; she has also professed an affection for Rutherglen, her mother's home town.

[4] Mina left school at 16 and worked in a variety of jobs, including as a kitchen porter, a cook and behind a bar.

In her twenties she worked in auxiliary nursing for geriatric and terminal care patients, before returning to education and earning a law degree from Glasgow University.

[5] It was while researching a PhD thesis on the ascription of mental illness to female offenders, and teaching criminology and criminal law at Strathclyde University in the 1990s, that she decided to write her first novel Garnethill, published in 1998 by Transworld.