Maureen Myant (2025) The Fallen

Maureen Myant, like most writers, was a writer in search of a publisher. I’ve read the first and her latest, The Fallen, in her four book, South-side of Glasgow, police-procedural published by Hobeck Books. I also read a fair bit of her reissued first book, The Search.

The Confession, which kicks off the crime series, is her best. The point of view shifted in her first Southside novel. Mostly the story was told from the point of view of DI Mark Nicholson. But the enigmatic and beautiful Suzanne, who also happens to be an artist, provides an attractive enough red herring for her point of view also to alternate with Nicholson’s.

I expected DI Nicholson to front the fourth novel in the same way. But he’s little more than backstory here. The story is told mainly from the point of view of Nicholson’s senior officer, DI Alex Scrimgeour. He was one dimensional in the first novel. His upgrade makes him more human. Part of the backstory was Nicholson and Scrimgeour shared a house, when the junior officer fell on hard time. I found that more unbelievable than someone taking a pot-shot at Scrimgeour. It’s a bit clichéd to say he ducked while picking up a crisp packet.

I was unconvinced by the setting. Glasgow, aye. But Scrimgeour lives in a tenement. His love interest and lady friend lives in a tenement. She also happens to be a doctor. His formerly lost daughter, Kate, lives in a tenement with her man, Connor. She’s a freelance journalist. He’s one-dimensional nice guy and doesn’t really matter. She’s investigating the apparent suicide of young lads that seemed to have committed suicide. There’s been a spate of them, with one common theme. Neither their parents or friends—all nice middle-class and educated adults and kids—insist their children, the victim, wasn’t suicidal. A psychiatrist and her husband—you’ve guessed live in a tenement. It’s the West End of Glasgow, the better type of tenement. But with dual income of over one-hundred grand the flight from tenement life began in the 1930s.

Anyway, that’s a gripe. Not a big issue. Two storylines. A cop being shot at and spate of suicides. The latter told from the point of  view of the ever-so nice Kate Scrimgeour.

Then there’s backstory of Alex’s mum and Kate’s granny—who she never really knew, having been stolen as a baby—having dementia and dying. A lost cat. And money-grubbing relatives angling for a share of her estate even before she’s dead.

A family drama, a detective story, a whodunnit involving drug gangs and the whys in the rise of modern crime themes. Read on.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CVBVVGD6