Today it's a pleasure to take part in the BlogTour Thirty-One Bones by Morgan Cry.
Gordon Brown was born in Glasgow, and lived in London, Toronto and a small village called Tutbury before retuning home. His day job, for many years, was as a marketing strategy specialist, and he helped found Scotland's International Crime Writing Festival Bloody Scotland.
He's a DJ on local radio, has delivered pizza in Toronto, sold non-alcoholic beer in the Middle East, floated a high-tech company on the London Stock Exchange, compered the main stage at a two-day music festival and was booed by 49,000 people while on the pitch at a major football Cup Final. He has also written several short stories including one in the Anthony Award-winning Blood on the Bayou. He is married with two children and Thirty-One Bones is his eighth novel (his first writing under the name of Morgan Cry).
Follow @GoJaBrown on Twitter, on Amazon, on Goodreads, Visit gordonjbrown.com, Buy Thirty-One Bones
About the book
When Effie Coulston drops dead on the floor of her bar in a small Spanish town mid-business meeting, her daughter Daniella feels it’s her duty to return for the funeral. But Daniella has been estranged from her mother for over twenty years, and Effie’s life in Spain harbours many secrets . Daniella is soon confronted by a hostile group of ex-pat misfits who frequent the bar and who, along with Effie, are involved in a multi-million-pound property scam. But the money has vanished, and the ex-pats are threatening to implicate Daniella to save themselves.
Meanwhile, a Spanish detective is investigating Effie’s death. He’s convinced Daniella knows more than she is telling. And now a terrifying enforcer has heard about the missing cash. With no idea where the money is and threats coming from all sides, Daniella is up against a seemingly impossible deadline to find the cash. She’s a stranger in a strange town – and she’s seriously out of her depth.
Cry is no stranger to the world of writing as Gordon Brown, but perhaps this pseudonym allows all preconceived ideas of his previous work and style to fall away to the side. This is a breath of fresh air and a new approach. This book has an modern urban crime feel, which also has an interesting flair of overseas exotic. Everything is exotic when you're an ex-pat longing for the borders of your own country.
Daniella feels obligated to play the role of darling daughter when her mother suddenly drops dead. Unfortunately Effie wasn't exactly a great role model when it comes to living a straight life and making a decent living. More like a Venus fly trap waiting for her next innocent victim. The crowds aren't exactly crying rivers of tears at her sudden demise.
Her victims are convinced the daughter knows exactly what her mother was up to and where the money is that she conned them out of. Facing a bar full of disgruntled ex-pats isn't exactly what
Daniella was expecting. Then again there was a reason she hadn't seen her mother in decades.
I liked the way it felt as if the author was having fun with the characters and the storyline. It's snarky, cynical and hilariously honest at times. I wonder if it feels just as refreshing for the author to be able to step away from his normal genre and construct.
If this is the beginning of a new direction it will be fascinating to see what Cry comes up with next.
Buy Thirty-One Bones at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Polygon (An Imprint of Birlinn Limited) pub date 2 July 2020.
