Will I love Garnethill?

Maureen O’Donnell’s married lover is found dead in her living room. Suspected of the killing, she decides to find the culprit herself. Along the way, we find out what happened to her and how badly let down she was by the system that should have protected her.

I found this a tough read, a woman’s perspective, casting a forensic eye on male behavior and its consequences.

Before I read Garnethill, my perception of the typical Glasgow crime novel protagonist was that of the hard-drinking, rule-breaking, middle-aged, divorced male detective – in other words, the usual cliché. Maureen O’Donnell shatters that. A survivor of childhood abuse, she’s treated as an unreliable eyewitness and potential murder suspect due to her mental health history and turns detective to entrap and unmask a killer who’s been targeting others like her – women whose voices are ignored because they’re deemed to be “crazy”. Packed with colourful characters and raw, angry prose, Denise Mina’s debut novel has a rough-and-ready quality compared… show more.