A TALENTED Renfrewshire author is shining a light on the importance of stay-at-home mums in her latest crime novel.

Murder on the First Date, written by Tania Scott, tells the tale of Mary Plunkett, who joins two other mums on ‘The Wronged Woman’s Cooperative’ as they launch a mission to discover who killed a teacher at their children’s school.

The amateur sleuths are more used to cases that involve the likes of tracking down runaway husbands and searching for lost dogs, so setting out to catch a murderer is a very different challenge for them.

Tania, who writes under the pen name of T.E. Scott, said her new book was a real labour of love.

She told The Gazette: “I wanted to write a story about mums because they’re quite often forgotten about – particularly stay-at-home mums because you don’t usually see them and I don’t feel like they’re very valued.

“I wanted to write something where these mums that are used to being in the background and looking after their kids get the chance to get involved in something bigger.”

The book is set in the fictional town of Invergryff, which Tania revealed is based on Paisley.

She moved to Paisley with her family during the Covid pandemic.

“It’s a great place to set a crime novel because it’s big enough that it has a police station but it’s also got that kind of thing of everyone knows everyone’s business and it’s got that community feeling,” said Tania.

“If you were to set the book in Glasgow, you wouldn’t have the same feeling of community.”

The novel aims to take a gentler approach to crime solving, with a light-hearted tone throughout, and Tania hopes it will offer some much-needed escapism for readers.

She has avoided adding gory details that might deter those who are faint-hearted from reading crime novels.

She added: “I want a puzzle to solve, something quite light-hearted, and I want the character to be the focus.

“And, because my crime works are always in series, you get the same characters going through each book and hopefully that lets the reader enjoy being with those characters for a long time.”

The paperback and e-book editions of the book can be ordered online at www.amazon.co.uk.