#BlogTour ‘The Grifter’ by Sean Campbell and Ali Gunn

About the book…

One will rise. The other will fall.

Kent Bancroft’s rise to fame and fortune was nothing short of meteoric. Once a simple teacher in London’s East End, he’s now on course to become Britain’s youngest billionaire.

But his success has come on the back of those he’s trodden upon to get there. Among them is a man whose fall was as swift as Kent’s rise. He used to be a sparky until a freak accident robbed him of one leg.

And then Kent Bancroft robbed him of everything else.

Forget forgiveness. Forget turning the other cheek. And forget waiting for karma.

This is a victim who won’t stand idly by.

He wants revenge.

And he’s going to get it.

Kent Bancroft will never see him coming.

My thanks to Zoe for the blogtour invite, and publishers Question Mark Press for the gifted review copy of ‘The Grifter’!

‘In the City of London, image is everything.’

A case which reads like ‘The Prince And The Pauper’ via ‘Reservoir Dogs’, this is an urban tale of one billionaire and  a one legged man whose paths have crossed on the climb to the top.

A merchant banker with no scruples, Kent is a billionaire moving millions of pounds on a daily basis, robbing Peter to pay Paul and feeling nothing whilst he plays fast and loose with other people’s lives.

It is no surprise, therefore that when a one legged beggar comes up asking for change, that this is not someone he recognises in the slightest. It’s his casual disregard whilst negotiating on the phone that leads to his own downfall.

For the beggar is James, a man sleeping on the street (or rather, sitting to protect his crutches) someone whose life has been less than smoothly running, and showing that no good deed goes unpunished, finding that Kent has dropped his wallet in his hurry to get his security to move the beggar on, steals it. Loaded with money, Kent’s disregard of James has cost him nearly 3 grand in cash but even worse, there is an incriminating micro sd card that could bring the whole of his empire tumbling down.

There is such a gripping hook as the cliff-hanger chapter end of James first person narrative chapter where he mentions that Kent still owes him 500,00 pounds…WHAT?!

It becomes clear they have known each other, somehow, in a past life, and that James is out for revenge. Having established that Kent doesn’t recognise him, James is primed to attack, Kent and his 28 year old supermodel wife are partying it up and giving speeches whilst James is looking in bargain bins for food and somewhere to sleep, their lives could not be more different.

And the suspense keeps on building, and you want to keep on reading to find out just what happened, which exponentially increases at the same time as the past intertwines in ever decreasing circles to the denouement point, where you have to punch the air and basically say ‘HOLY SHIT WHAT THE WHAT?!’ Or, if you are not me, something more articulate.

Ali and Sean weave a seamless web of revenge, toxic masculinity and suspense which is so thick you need a chainsaw to slice it.

It is deeply authentic, the contrast between James first person narrative, and Kent’s third person, has you naturally leaning towards being on James’ side and wanting him to take this bastard down a peg or 20. The difference between those who have and have not is very timely as the gap between rich and poor takes a step further apart from each other, the goals of one insurmountable from the other end of the poverty gap.

The feeling of righteous anger when you are poor towards the rich people who could, with a tiny fraction of their wealth make so many’s lives more bearable is achingly prescient . I also loved the dark humour which this novel is sprinkled with, and found it a gripping and highly readable thriller.

And, it is up to you, the reader to work out which one of them is, ‘The Grifter’, defined by the Urban Dictionary as-

A Grifter, is somebody who can influence anybody, anywhere, at anytime, into doing whatever they choose to have them do, that will result in the grifter’s personal gain. Usually monetary, but really anything that benefits him or her somehow. It’s absolutely NOT all of these technical things that puts this person in a specific box or particular “genre” of criminal.

About the authors…

Ali Gunn

Ali Gunn kills people for a living*.

The characters in Ali’s books are the kind of strong, fearless women that every girl dreams of growing up to be.

The first DCI Elsie Mabey novel, ‘The Career Killer’, has been downloaded over 75,000 times since its release.

Book two in the series, ‘The Psychopath Within’, is due for release in 2022.

Ali is also a co-author of The Grifter, out August 15th 2021.

*fictional people, honest officer!

Links-https://www.gunncrime.com/

Sean Campbell 

Sean trained as a barrister and was called to the Bar of England and Wales back in 2011. Luckily for him, he now spends his days working out how to kill people without being caught, and then flipping the switch to play detective. His non-writing interests vary from photography and cinema to rugby and hiking. You can usually find him somewhere in one of London’s coffee shops – look for the big bearded guy taking up way too much room and hogging the Wi-Fi.

He is the author of the seven DCI Morton novels (‘Dead On Demand’, ‘Cleaver Square’ ‘Ten Guilty Men’, ‘The Patient Killer’, ‘Missing Persons’, ‘The Evolution Of A Serial Killer’, and ‘My Hands Are Tied’), one seasonal novella (‘Christmas Can Be Murder’) plus the standalone crime thriller The Grifter.

Links-http://www.dcimorton.com/

Twitter @DCIMorton @zooloo2008 @QuestionPress