Denise Mina talks to Mariella Frostrup about her latest crime novel The Red Road. Denise explains why she felt it was important to tell the story of a young teenage girl groomed for sex and why she set part of the novel on the night that Diana, Princess of Wales died.

While going about the daily tasks of our jobs, many of us feel that the japes, the wacky scenarios and the bizarre workings of the place could often make a great plotline for a novel. Well two new writers have done just that. Michael Honig's novel Goldblatt's Descent is set in a London NHS hospital and his acerbic registrar battles with the idiosyncrasies of his colleagues and the system - so it's no surprise to find he's a former senior registrar himself, and serving police officer Lisa Cutts whose debut novel Never Forget has as its heroine the determined Detective Constable Nina Foster. So what's the appeal of writing about your work and what insights do readers get into these high profile public service occupations?

On the 22nd of September 1943, a twenty nine year old secretary called Pearl Witherington, AKA Agent Marie, was parachuted into Occupied France. She joined a number of civilians who volunteered as agents of the secret Special Operations Executive, specialising in guerrilla warfare and "the sabotage and subversion of the enemy." From resourceful courier, she went on to command a troop of highly effective French resistance fighters and ended up with a bounty of one million francs on her head. Biographer Carole Seymour-Jones brings her amazing story to life.

Producer: Andrea Kidd. Show less