Read this book at your Peril

 Ten good reasons not to read this book

 by 

R.A. Barnes

1.      Main character. The over-riding reason you shouldn’t read this novel (or maybe you already haven’t read it?) is Gerard Mayes. Ger is an anti-hero. Men want to be him, women want to convert him. But some of those anti-hero attributes should be enough to put you off.

2.      Alpha male. If you only want to read about dominant men then Peril isn’t for you. Ger is a slacker. Easily led by others. But that’s not his self-image. He’s in total denial about how others see him.

3.      Eye candy. Broad-shouldered, tall, athletic and drop-dead gorgeous. He ain’t that. Ger is a bit short, a bit rounded, a sandy-haired Scot who would be past his prime if he ever had one. But women – some women – fall under his spell.

4.      Fidelity. Faithful and dedicated to one woman. Not Ger. He’s having an affair with his wife’s best friend.

5.      Clean-living. With a taste for a pint or several and a best friend who has an expensive cocaine habit, Ger fails on this score too.

6.      High moral standards. The opening chapter leaves no doubts about Ger’s standards. Even his disposal of the body is shoddy.

7.      Good health. The only good thing about his health is Ger doesn’t smoke. If you could read his palm the lifeline wouldn’t be long.

8.      Intelligence. Not half as smart as he thinks he is. The anti-hero’s attempts to outwit his blackmailer and deceive the police can only end in disaster.

9.      Likeable. Well, I’ll let an unfortunate reader have their say on this one. If I'm honest, I wanted to punch the main character in the face. Repeatedly. I wished him nothing but suffering … I wanted to buy a plane ticket to Dublin just to hunt down Ger--a fictional character--and kick him soundly in the bollocks. Enough said.

10.  Conclusive. It should be all over for Ger at the end of Peril. Having left a trail of bodies and destroyed lives in his wake, he should get his comeuppance. But he doesn’t. Not quite anyway.

If you have been fortunate enough not to read Peril then you might also like to not read the sequel Getting Out of Dodge. I can similarly recommend not reading anything else I’ve written.

Ruby Barnes

And now, introducing that awful, awful book...

PERIL

 A moment of madness. His choices. Their lives.

Ger Mayes doesn't stand out from the crowd and life is passing him by. He thinks the world owes him a living but is held back by his own minor daily misdemeanors. That is until he kills a mugger and is blackmailed by a vicious Romanian crime gang. Ger keeps the secret from his wife, Jo, but bares all to her best friend, his mistress Renée. He also trusts his pal, high-wheeling drug dealer Tom, but gets dragged out of his depth into a world of darker deception. In a deadly struggle to cast off the gang's net, Ger becomes more entangled. Can he find a way out and save those he loves?

Contemporary crime fiction set in Ireland, PERIL is the picaresque story of an anti-hero. Men want to be him, women want to redeem him. Ger's story is fiction, but his origins are real - everyday folk living and working in a Dublin city center wracked with organized begging, drugs and violent crime. It's not all leprechauns and shillelaghs in Ireland.

PERIL is the first of the Ger Mayes crime fiction series.