#BlogTour Brotherhood by David Beckler

It's a pleasure to take part in the BlogTour Brotherhood by David Beckler. It's fast-paced urban crime fiction combined with military exploitation.

About the Author
David writes crime thrillers full of fast-paced action.
Born in Addis Ababa in 1960, he spent his first eight years living on an agricultural college in rural Ethiopia where his love of reading developed. After dropping out of university he became a firefighter and served 19 years before leaving to start his own business. He began writing in 2010 and uses his work experiences to add realism to his fiction.

The Mason and Sterling series centre on two ex-Royal Marines, Byron who now runs a security company and Adam who is a firefighter. A strong cast of supporting characters support his protagonists. Sapere Books are publishing Brotherhood, the first novel in the series, in late 2018.

David lives in Manchester, his adopted home since 1984. In his spare time he tries to keep fit—an increasingly difficult undertaking—listens to music, socialises and feeds his voracious book habit.

Follow @DavidBeckler1 @SapereBooks on Twitter,Visit davidbeckler.com
Buy Brotherhood

About the book
An ex-Marine is forced to confront his troubled past…

Manchester, England, 1998
When Byron Mason’s estranged nephew, Philip, rings him out of the blue in desperate need of help, he knows he must put his personal feelings aside to protect his family.

A teenage boy has been murdered, and Philip is one of the suspects.Worse than that, the dead boy was the nephew of Ritchie McLaughlin – a local thug who Byron has clashed with in the past – and Philip has now gone missing. Desperate to clear Philip’s name, Byron enlists the help of his old friend Adam Sterling to track down the real killers.

Is Philip in danger? Can Byron and Adam find him before the police do? Or has Byron’s violent past with McLaughlin come back to haunt him…?

This nail-biting new thriller series will have you on the edge of your seat! Perfect for fans of Lee Child, J. B. Turner, Mark Dawson and David Baldacci…

Review
The first chapter sets the tone for the rest of the book. It is non-stop conflict and action from the very beginning. Adam Sterling and Byron Mason work diligently to try and save a young man, who sees his friend being brutally slaughtered and becomes the next potential victim.

Although the focus is on Philip, the young nephew of Byron Mason, there is a second storyline in the book, which influences the first one. The story of Mugisa, the child soldier from Africa.

Nearly every chapter has a flashback to Mugisa's life before he became the criminal he is today. The boy who sees friends, loved ones and innocent people tortured and slaughtered. The child who is taken and trained to kill without compunction, to live as a killer and to disassociate himself from the violence he condones and perpetrates.

It's an interesting way to go about it, because the author wants readers to see and experience the child, and not just the brutal killer who wants to eliminate the witness to his heinous deeds. You get an extreme contrast between the helpless child and the ruthless killer. The reader feels compassion for the child and simultaneously disgust for the machete wielding man.

It's fast-paced urban crime fiction combined with military exploitation. In a way Beckler shows the parallels between Mugisa's life as a child soldier and how he has become the adult who recruits the young to become his urban foot soldiers. Doomed to repeat his own tragic history, but with himself in the position of power this time. The Brotherhood continues on different soil with new soldiers, but with the same ruthless mindset.

Buy Brotherhood at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Sapere Books: pub date 7 Feb. 2019. Buy at Amazon com.

Read an extract of Brotherhood
Prologue

A six-foot-high steel spike fence topped off with coils of razor wire guarded the scrapyard. A gap in the fence made room for a pair of gates fashioned from a frame of scaffolding poles bolted into rough rectangles. Random pieces of sheet steel welded together in a patchwork of rust filled the spaces between the poles. The gates stood open, a heavy chain and padlock hanging from the centre of one of them. Piles of crushed and rusting vehicles occupied the yard, its patched concrete surface covered in a thin layer of mud infused with old motor oil.
The Range Rover rolled forward through the gap. A chorus of barking and snarling broke out. Behind the fence, two large, unkempt Alsatians leapt to their feet. Separated from the rest of the yard by a wire barrier, they threw themselves against it, showing their canines in greeting.
Summoned by the barking, a grey-haired figure strode out of the opening at one end of the container. He advanced, wearing a scowl. The men in the car waited until he came closer, then, at a signal from their leader, all four threw their doors open and leapt out.
The grey-haired man hesitated for an instant before he recognised them and ran to the container, shouting a warning.
In response to his shout, two younger men emerged from the container. Each carried a scarred baseball bat with thick tape covering the business end. Although outnumbered, they didn’t appear cowed. One of the men from the car produced a sawn-off shotgun. The two parties faced each other across the filthy concrete.
The dogs became more frenzied until the larger of the two leapt the fence. The gunman swung the barrel of the shotgun towards the snarling animal.
The discharge ruptured the morning air and the dog, hit in mid-leap, yelped before bouncing off concrete and landing in a heap in the muck. Shot in the chest, it lay twitching in a spreading pool of blood. The boom of the shot echoed off the surrounding buildings.
The leader of the invaders cursed and checked the street, then led his men back to the car. He paused at the car and shouted, “This isn’t over.”
The car reversed and shot out of the yard before spinning its wheels and, tyres screeching, raced away.
 One of the younger men threw his baseball bat at the car; it fell short, clattering on the road. The other helped his father to his feet. The older man shook off the helping hand and went to his dog, cradling its head as its eyes filmed over. He glared at the receding car, muttering, “I’ll make you pay.”