Today, it’s my turn to host the blog tour of Shaking Hands With The Devil by Bryan.J.Mason for ZooLoo’s Book Tours. Thank you to both Zoe and the author for my gifted copy of the book to take part today. All views are my own.
‘WE ARE ON THIS CASE LIKE A BONER FIDO BLOODHOUND…
AND MY MEN ARE BARKING AT THE LEASH’
In this darkly comic novel, Clifton Gentle is an ordinary man without much to distinguish him. Not much, that is, apart from being a serial killer who is leaving bits of his young male victims scattered around North London.
DCI Dave Hicks is the larger than life policeman determined to catch him. His attempts to find ‘the nutter’ through a combination of spoonerisms, personal abuse and a belief that something will turn up don’t go well. All that turns up are yet more body parts.
In a sleazy London dogged by growing squalor and an IRA bombing campaign in the last days of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, the gruesome murders spur an over-the-top media and merchandising frenzy.
The hunt becomes an increasingly personal one and a race against the clock as Clifton, Dave Hicks, a would-be victim, and a copycat killer each try to uncover what – or who – they hold responsible for their own problems.
A book that I would say is a black comedy crime thriller, and I loved every word. The story takes place in the days that heralded the end of Margaret Thatcher. We meet two serial killers and a copper. D.C.I Dave Hicks is the one tasked with discovering who is leaving body parts around and about. Clifton Gentle is the serial killer in question, and unknown to Hicks there is a copycat too.
Set around the gay clubs and bars of London, and the author doesn’t hold back with the gay scene, but on the other hand, doesn’t go overboard with the murders and the dumping of the body parts.
A unique, humorous, and dark take on a serial killer story with twists that just keep going. I spent the majority of time either sniggering, smiling, or just laughing. The story is told from the perspectives of DCI Hicks and Clifton Gentle, so we get to know both of them quite well. Hicks is definitely not a man who’s likeable. A dumb, loud, and on the larger side, policeman, who has claimed he will catch the killer within two weeks… Not realising there is a copycat, too. This leads to a merry dance for Hicks.
Shaking Hands With The Devil is a truly different book in that I was cheering the killer on! I willed him to get away so many times that it’s funny for that on its own. The little details of the era added an authenticity to the setting with the IRA threats and even the Margaret Thatcher reign with John Major popping his head up, too. I felt like Bryan.J.Mason had taken me back to my childhood years of the 80s.
I thoroughly enjoyed this comedy of errors that entertained me for a day and would say that if you love crime with a funny (albeit dark) side give this book a go, I bet you read it in no more than 3 sittings, I know I couldn’t put it down anyway.
Buy Links
Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shaking-Hands-Devil-Bryan-Mason-ebook/dp/B09GKQF66Z
Amazon US https://www.amazon.com/Shaking-Hands-Devil-Bryan-Mason-ebook/dp/B09GKQF66Z
Author Bio
Bryan J Mason wrote his black comedy about a serial killer in the late 1980s, but reluctantly put it away in a drawer after his agent narrowly failed to get it published. He concluded that he was a failed author, so might as well be a failure at something else instead. However, every ten years or so he dug it out and read it and each time he did was surprised to find that he still found it funny. He has now managed to get it published after making some changes, including firmly placing the action in the late ʼ80s and early ʼ90s for today’s reader.
He has worked as a brush salesman and rent collector, made sound effects for BBC Radio and been a tax inspector and occasional actor. He writes regular theatre reviews for StageTalk Magazine and Bristol 24/7.
He is a member of the Crime Writers Association and currently working on a new novel featuring a Jewish detective investigating a series of serial killings in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, called An old Tin Can.
Bryan lives in Bristol with his wife and has two children in their twenties.
Follow him at:
https://www.facebook.com/bryanjmason89/
https://www.instagram.com/bryanjmason/
https://twitter.com/BryanJMason
Website
sharonbeyondthebooks.uk 
Thank you so much CF for taking part in the tour today and sharing your fab review x
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