A Premier League bad-boy murdered at his newly refurbished home; a teenage runaway’s corpse uncovered on a construction site; a gunman shoots up the premises of the local gangland boss – all of them projects run by beleaguered builder Mark Poynter.
Can he fix it?
Things seem to be on the up for builder, Mark Poynter.
Mark’s got himself a nice little earner taking care of the sizeable property portfolio built up from the career earnings of former Premier League bad-boy and local celebrity, Danny Kidd.
But when Danny Kidd puts an interested party’s nose out of joint by using his star status to gazump them on a development site – the derelict Admiral Guthrie pub – things turn ugly and incendiary, leaving Mark to deal with the consequences.
Meanwhile local villain, Hamlet, uses his subtle persuasion to dupe Mark into unwittingly help him launder vast sums of dirty cash but when it drags the area to the brink of gang warfare, Mark’s help is needed to try and broker a truce.
At the Admiral Guthrie secrets from the past meet conflicts of the present – will the rising flames reduce Mark’s future to ashes?
Matthew Ross is the author of 3 published novels to date. His first novel, “Death Of A Painter” was selected by The Sun newspaper as one of its picks of the week. Matthew wrote his first novel after undertaking the prestigious Faber Academy 6-month novel writing course under the tutelage of Richard Skinner.
Prior to that Matthew wrote material for a leading British stand-up comedian for their live performances, corporate bookings, national theatre tours and their appearances on tv and radio shows such as “Have I Got News For You”, “Mock The Week” and “The News Quiz”.
In addition, he was commissioned to provide material and sketches for several comedy series that were broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
Matthew lives in Kent with his family and pets.
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My thoughts: I felt sorry for Mark, as soon as something seems to be going right for him, things start going wrong. He’s gone into business with the Kidd brothers, former footballer Danny and Stuart. They’ve bought an old pub to turn into flats, Mark’s going to do the work with his Uncle Bern and Co, but someone doesn’t want them anywhere near the place. There’s a furious Scot called Donaldson who keeps popping up and Danny’s feuding with a rapper online.
Lots of grim things keep happening, not least what’s unearthed at the old Admiral Guthrie. Now the police are involved and Mark’s trying to keep the work coming in. He might need to ask local kingpin Hamlet for help, which his girlfriend Perry isn’t pleased about.
This is a blackly comic novel, as Mark and his friends stumble from one disaster to another, there’s murder, arson and he keeps ending up with guns pointed in his face. The building game in Kent’s Medway towns is not exactly all friendly. But thankfully Mark’s got good, if interesting, friends and it might all be ok. This time. Great fun and with lots of twists and turns.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 
Thank you so much for taking part in the tour x
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