I am pleased my friend and fellow author took time to visit the blog today to tell me all about his new book, An Old Tin Can. The book was published this year by SpellBound Books Ltd. Thank you for your time. Bryan. Tell my readers all about your writing.
Hello, and firstly thanks to you, Val, for including me on your great blog.
I met Val at the Theakstons Crime Festival in Harrogate earlier in the summer and she is not only a wonderful writer, but a lovely person.
My writing name is Bryan J Mason as there is another published author called Bryan Mason, who writes erotic fiction, although I am happy to get any of his readers.
I am living proof that you don’t have to be a young, upcoming author to become published. I wrote my first novel about a serial killer in London, 'Shaking Hands With The Devil' in the late 1980s. Even though I got a literary agent who helped guide me and made me do numerous rewrites, we failed to get it published.
I received loads of feedback and several publishers said that they would like to see the next thing I wrote, but I was very discouraged and decided I was a failed writer who ought to go and fail at something else instead. Which largely I did! I spent the next thirty years working as a forensic financial investigator, a mediator and also spent some time making sound effects for BBC Radio.
However, I finally decided to give it another go, and after rewriting my first novel – yet again – I became a published author 30 years after the first draft.
My current book, An Old Tin Can, is a black comedy crime thriller set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and features my hero Harry and his team in the RUC, called ‘The Squad’. It mixes fiction with real events from the period and research is a major part of my writing process. This can take up a lot of time and tempt me into being deflected, but gives huge satisfaction.
Harry is an outsider, and The Squad are an abandoned group of oddballs with no work to do. They are only allowed to work crime, but there is none. All crime is terrorist related, or policed by terrorists themselves. However, Harry uncovers evidence that there is a serial killer at large and gets drawn into an increasingly complex political landscape.
Future titles in the series will include 'Dead On' to be published in June/July 2025, and 'Never a Happy Ending'. I am enjoying the challenge of plotting a series which differs so much from writing a standalone novel. The recurrent themes in the series are identity, murder and … biscuits.
The Blurb
Belfast 1989. The Troubles.
Harry Burnard joins a police force confronted with threats on every side.
His team, ‘The Squad’, a bunch of abandoned oddballs, are only allowed to work criminal cases.
But there is no crime. Only terrorism. So, do they really have nothing to do?
When Harry uncovers clues about an apparently random series of sectarian stabbings, he gets caught up in an increasingly complex political landscape. And sets out to find a killer unlike any other.
In this explosive witty novel, where not everyone is who they seem to be, it can be dangerous to know who you are.
The Author
Outside of his novels,Bryan is passionate about the theatre and writes regular theatre reviews. He lives in Bristol with his wife. He has two children in their twenties, and it is fair to say that his family act as his harshest critics.
He likes nothing more than being in a graveyard. Which he believes may come in handy one day.
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