A misanthropic horror comedy for people who think humanity had it coming.
Sam Hain is a San Francisco P.I. with a permanently raised eyebrow and moronic homicidal parents he hasn’t seen in 18 years — not since they tried to cast him in a DIY snuff film.
Mike is a demon — or, as he prefers, a diabolical entity — with his own ideas about how best to punish the human race.
When an anonymous letter arrives, along with $500 in cash, asking Sam to investigate a murder in a small town, he’s curious enough to get in the car. That, plus he has nothing better to do.
The victim? A man found dead inside a tumble dryer.
The clue? The name MIKE, written in blood above the body.
The twist? The letter was postmarked before the murder happened.
Soon, Sam’s navigating a town full of eccentrics: an elderly laundromat owner who speaks fluent profanity, a death metal teen with conservative parents, a bigoted religious fundamentalist, and a hedonistic teacher on Sam’s wavelength who doesn’t believe in small talk. Meanwhile, the local sheriff — experiencing his first murder case in decades — follows Sam around like a kid at Disneyland.
And Mike? Mike is powerful. Mike has plans. And he really, really hates stupid people. In that regard, he and Sam have something in common.
Twisted, sardonic and wildly inappropriate, SAM HAIN is a critically acclaimed murder mystery wrapped in a demonic satire — and it absolutely does not want to be your friend.
Hamid Amirani was born in Iran and came to London not long after. He studied Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Before turning to fiction, Amirani worked across a wide range of media and creative roles – from proofreading and freelance blogging for an American camera bag company, to interviewing director Michael Bay for a print feature. His horror-comedy spec script earned a Recommend from Script Pipeline, the screenwriting platform set up by Donnie Darko producer
Sean McKittrick.
In the late 1990s, Amirani was a guest on The James Whale Radio Show after a series of calls as his alter ego GanjaMan led to a studio invitation.
He began writing his debut novel, SAM HAIN, during lockdown, which helped stave off cabin fever. A genre-blending satire, it marks his first full-length work of fiction.
My thoughts: I am aware that I have a rather dark sense of humour, and this book was hilarious, but it won’t be to everyone’s tastes.
PI Sam Hain (yes, his awful parents did that to him on purpose, even though the pagan festival is pronounced slightly differently) is directed to a small town to investigate a murder. There’s a dead man in a tumble dryer (you could definitely get a body in an industrial dryer – they’re huge) but no evidence or explanation as to how he got there.
Working with the small town sheriff, Sam is attempting to figure out what’s going on, when a detective from Oregon arrives, keen to talk to Sam about his awful (really awful( estranged parents. He last saw them when he was 17, and they were trying to kill him. They’ve disappeared after a killing spree that defies explanation.
As it becomes apparent that both cases are connected, the three men team up to try to make sense of all the murders.
Then Mike the demon shows up and things take a much weirder turn.
I really enjoyed this twisted, weird, horror comedy, it made me laugh and is populated with some very unique and memorable characters. The narrator is hilarious and has plenty to say about the world we live in. Hopefully Sam will return in another weird and wacky case at some point.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own
ramblingmads 