Thank you for allowing me to read this book. I thought this was well thought out the writing style was easy to read through I sat and read this all in one sitting. I thought the relationships and the characters were fully fledged out but the one thing that disconnected me from the story is that there is so many aspects and so many layers to the storing and then some new vents back to back happening that it seems to take away from the story more than it is adding substance .

I will openly admit that I did judge this book by its cover but I am actually really pleased that I did…great story, great cover, great read! Gangster turned sleuth Steven Mason goes in search of Dominique, his Grandad’s girlfriend who has gone missing. The plot steadily plays out, with some good twists and turns and some unique, and interesting characters along the way. The dry sense of humour from the main character helps keep the story flowing and overall it was a light and enjoyable read. I will certainly look out for my by Simon Marlowe.

‘𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆’𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒉,’ 𝑰 𝒔𝒂𝒊𝒅. ‘𝑰𝒕’𝒔 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉.’

This book is told in first person from Steven’s POV and takes place over 7 days with an epilogue that is months later. I would definitely consider this book more of a crime mystery than a thriller. Even though thrillers are usually more of my thing, I actually really enjoyed this book!

First off I loved the main character Steven. Yes, he’s part of the gang and yes, he’s done bad things but it’s just so damn hard to not like him. This is definitely a “whodunnit” book with some family drama. I loved that the chapters were short. It was a very easy read that kept my interest the entire time because I didn’t know who to trust! Definitely recommend checking out!

“𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒕, 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒇 𝒘𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒏’𝒕 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒊𝒕… 𝑾𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒉 𝒊𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒔, 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆, 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒔 𝒔𝒐 𝒘𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒘𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕, 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂 𝒇𝒂𝒊𝒓 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒆𝒕.”

🦜 B O O K • T O U R 🦜
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Title: The Dead Hand Of Dominque
Author: Simon Marlowe
Rating: 4/5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Steven Mason, a career villain, needs to find his boss’s girlfriend, Dominique. Right from the start, he knows things won’t be easy when he finds a hand in Mickey Finn’s old fridge. So begins his search to finding out the truth and with it comes St. Mary with the limp wrist; Dominiques husband, Texas, a gigolo; his brother Greg; the rent boys; a corrupt detective and a psychiatrist. As Steven searches for the truth, he realizes Dominique going missing may be a result of dispute between two gangs. He needs to decide who he can and cannot trust in his search for Dominique.
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First, let me send a huge thank you to @simonmarloweauthor and @cranthropemillner for allowing me to be apart of this book tour!
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“You know, I couldn’t think of anyone who had said anything to me that didn’t sound like they were hiding something from me. Nothing unusual in that given my line of work, but there was too much hiding, too many half-truths and fake news.”
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This story is told from Steven’s point of view, and let me tell you, I absolutely love him. Yeah he’s a bad guy, so what? I was rooting for him the entire time. Steven comes to meet quite a variety of characters during his search for Dominique, some I liked, others I knew from the start I did not like; but I loved the uniqueness each one brought.
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This book was a wild ride. I really enjoyed the mystery of it all. I loved how I never knew who I could or couldn’t trust in this story. And the ending was perfect, definitely did not see that coming at all. I loved everything about it! The short chapters make for quick and easy read too!
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The Dead Hand Of Dominique is out now be sure to get your copy!
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#booktour #booktourbookreview #careercriminal #stmarywiththelimpwrist #semiretiredgigolo #familydrama #corruptdetective #talkingparrot #deadhand #crimemystery #thedeadhandofdominique #simonmarlowe

A big thank you to NetGalley and Cranthorpe Millner Publishers for the advanced copy of this book to read and review.

I've rated The Dead Hand of Dominque as 3 stars because it just felt average to me, there were parts that I really enjoyed and parts that I felt let the book down and going straight down the middle felt the only fair way to rate this book.

The writing was the best part of this book for me, despite the slow burn nature of this story the author kept us interested and built sentences and paragraphs that hooked you like a fish on a line. I couldn't fault the writing itself, it was high quality and had everything you could want to grab your attention and make you read the book.

That being said, I did feel at points that the author introduced too many strands of the story and it became quite difficult to keep up. I struggled to see how everything could come together in a way that would give us the answers we needed.

My other favourite part of this book was the characters, which surprised me a little bit as they didn't seem like the focal point of the story. Steven took the lead role and narrated the story, and I did find myself drawn to him. He was an incredibly interesting and complex person and his narration of the story was part of the reason I enjoyed this book. However, I did feel that the other characters weren't as well developed and didn't add as much value. which isn't a criticism as I don't feel like the characters were meant to be the focal point.

I did enjoy that the other characters weren't as well developed though, because it meant I could focus on the plot and the story and really try and piece together what was happening.

The plot itself was (for the first 75/80%) was brilliant, it was convoluted in the best way and really worked to lead us on a wild goose chase! But, when we reached the final 20% of the book it just undid everything that I'd just read... It just became confusing, in the worst way possible and I don't feel like we ever reached a proper conclusion.

I finished the book feeling very let down and unsure about what had actually happened to end the book. Plus, certain parts of the book weren't wrapped up properly, which really bugged me.
One of the things the author did incredibly well though was to keep the intrigue building for the entire story. Because we were being led on this wild ride it was hard not to be incredibly intrigued by the whole thing!

But, the atmosphere did let this book down, and I feel that was due to the slow pace of the story. It felt like I had to really be in the mood to read this book, which is why it took me so long to read it. It wasn't something I could just pick up and relax which, you had to really concentrate otherwise you would have lost track.

Overall, The Dead Hand of Dominique did have it's elements that were incredible, like the plot and the characters, but it's actual entertainment value and the final 20% of the book just let it down for me and weren't what I would have expected.

I thought it was an interesting read. I really like the short chapters! I feel like there was a lot going on but the author did a good job at writing it. I liked Steven. I wish we had more POV from some of the other characters.

This book follows Steven and a cast of crazy characters and side plots over a course of 7 days, and was told in Stevens point of view the whole time, which makes the book easier to follow. And even with all of the characters and side plots, the chapters were short, and I still able to follow along with no issues. I love the old crime scene mystery/suspense books. Especially when you become invested in the main character.

This was a pretty short mystery/thriller which chronicles Steven, journal-like, as he is tasked to find his boss's girlfriend Dominique, who has gone missing. It jumps straight into the action, without overly much preamble, and takes us on Steven's journey as he finds Dominique's severed hand and tries to unravel the mystery of what has happened to her, and finds himself unwittingly embroiled in a potentially burgeoning turf war between his boss and his father.

It took me a while to get into the writing, because I felt quite thrown off by the snappy, expository style of it, but once I got used to it, it flowed pretty well. I like the sort of stream-of-consciousness way that the story unfolds from Steven's POV. It also sort of read like a movie montage of sorts, if that makes sense. I think where the writing works best is in the dialogue, which was really quite well, and where you can't really get a sense of the characters and their motivations and inner workings from the non-dialogue bits of writing, the dialogue does showcase very distinctive voices.

It's a very decent book, and feels like a fever dream at times actually, with some scenes being pretty weird and ludicrous but not in a way that would take you out of the story, but in a bemusing way. I think it works as a mystery more than a thriller or horror, because there's really nothing too exciting or gory about it (to me at least; there were some scenes which may be gruesome to others), but it really keeps you guessing (and slightly confused) till the end. And I was actually still confused after I finished. The ending felt very abrupt and snappy, and I really didn't know what to make of it.

Overall, barring all my confusion, it's a fast, solid, decent mystery for anyone who's looking for a book like that.

Overall it dragged on a bit for me in spots. Original concept though and thoroughly entertaining, I think it would go better with a cocktail next to a pool. Definitely a novel to tune out to.