2 BY MARTIN STANLEY

2 this week from Teesside author, Martin Stanley.






















I have a stack of his Stanton Brother books on the pile but to date have only managed to read one of them - The Curious Case of the Missing Moolah, thoughts here. More fool me.

From the horse's mouth.... The Stanton Brothers series comprises of ........

Sort of... In order 1) Curious Case 2) A Funny Thing 3) Green-eyed Monster 4) Bone Breakers 5) The Hunters 6) The Glasgow Grin 1/2 

With the exception of The Hunters & Glasgow Grin they can be read and enjoyed on their own (unless you're OCD about things)

Billingham Forum came afterwards.

There's also a stand-alone novel The Gamblers and a collection of short stories - The Greatest Show in Town (and other shorts).

Martin Stanley has his website here.
You can catch him on Facebook here and over on Twitter - @MStanleyAuthor




The Glasgow Grin (A Stanton Brothers thriller Book 6) (2015)

In the aftermath of The Hunters, the Stantons are in hiding. They have a pile of money that doesn’t belong to them, and a lot of dead bodies to show for it. They’ve never had a problem with doling out violence to Middlesbrough’s villains, but now the stakes are different: A mother and her innocent daughter have been savagely mutilated in a revenge attack by a twisted maniac. An attack for which the Stantons are being blamed…

Bob Owden, feared local crimelord and businessman, wants to know exactly what happened at the Hollis Haulage Massacre. As Bob’s investigation progresses, and victims mount up, he comes to realise that the Stanton brothers might just know a thing or two about it. And anyone who comes to the attention of Bob Owden is not likely to have a long and happy future.

In order to survive, the brothers are going on the warpath. Bringing their own brand of street justice to the scum who cross them, while - of course - making sure that they still make a profit at the end of it. They’ll use blackmail and intimidation to flush out the culprits, all the while dodging hitmen, gangsters, and the ever-increasing bounty on their heads. But even they might have bitten off more than they can chew this time…

Set in a world where everybody’s motives are suspect, where the good guys are bad and the bad guys are worse, where every favour can cost the ultimate price; The Glasgow Grin combines intense, fast-paced plotting, ferocious ultra-violence, snappy, foul-mouthed dialogue, and a rogue’s gallery of twisted villains to create a crime thriller so wild that it just might leave you grinning from ear-to-ear.

WARNING: CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE AND VIOLENCE THROUGHOUT. NOT FOR THE EASILY OFFENDED OR THOSE OF A SENSITIVE DISPOSITION.

The Gamblers  (2011)

What would you do for seven hundred and fifty grand?

Would you betray your friends? Would you gamble your future? Would you kill?

Four men with dirty pasts and uncertain futures discover just what they're capable of when they have the chance to get their hands on a fortune, in this action-packed noir from the author of The Hunters and The Glasgow Grin. They lie, they steal, they double-cross, they kill, and they gamble it all for the big score.

But one thing’s for certain, when the gamble is this big somebody has to lose.

The Gamblers is a powerful, complex, well-plotted crime thriller that makes the most of its gritty British setting. A cast of strong characters spout profane and snappy dialogue at each other and, once experienced, its explosive blood-spattered finale is difficult to forget. It would be a crime to miss it.



Because of my book-related series OCD, The Glasgow Grin will have to wait awhile.
The Gamblers is a bit of a monster at 500 plus pages, but it ain't gonna read itself, so one to kick back with over Christmas I think.

* The Glasgow Grin outside of fiction has a more sinister connotation dating back to the 1920s.
see Glagow smile