Solid start to what looks to be a promising series, gritty and violent as all gangland settings should be, its easy albeit uncomfortable at times, to read and definitely addictive. Really liked the flashbacks and betwixt the chapter inserts to help flesh out background understanding.

Gripping, addictive and completely intriguing I absolutely adored this book.
This is a book that converted me as a fan of the author and I want more

Intense and confronting, this book will likely divide readers. I hope people who are not comfortable with graphic descriptions of violence will stick with it as the characters are amazing and I quickly found myself sucked into their world. And it’s not always a very nice world. But that is kind of the point.

It's one of those book that push the boundary of my comfort zone as it's gritty, hard boiled, and somehow alien.
The style of writing is peculiar, the mind of The Boy is somewhat alient to me but fascinating at the same time.
It was like travelling to another planet, not being sure if you understood, and loveing it.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Here is a series debut I highlighted as one I wanted to read this year and a title which has appeared on at least a couple of forthcoming publications recommended reads lists. Lagos born trainee London solicitor Amen Alonge has written a very commercial novel which may attract those who do not regularly read fiction. It’s a day in the life of a young black man known only as “Pretty Boy” by other characters who arrives back in London with a clear desire for revenge but who, by accepting a piece of jewellery as part payment for a debt provokes a lot of unforeseen circumstances.
It's violent, it’s brash and unsentimental and both visually and aurally strong, as the author soundtracks many scenes by mentioning what music is being listened to. It is branded well, especially with regards to cars and weaponry and at times is gripping and always involving.
It’s not easy to write violence and Alonge does a good job focusing on the details leading up to an attack and then dispatching characters quickly. A couple of scenes are overwritten which gives a cartoonish quality and that is one of the inherent dangers of reading such scenes as compared to watching them on-screen.
It is hard to get into the mindset of these characters which can make them seem inconsistent. The author uses a mixture of first-person narrative from “Pretty Boy” (which is strong) and a third person narrative which at times I felt slightly confusing. There is a need to give the main character a back story which features mainly in a chunk in the last quarter of the book but I don’t know whether it helped in fully fleshing him out.
Indeed, this may not matter as this is Book 1 of a projected series so there is plenty of time for “Pretty Boy” to grow as a character. There is a freshness to this which I find invigorating but I don’t think the comparisons I’d seen to “The Wire” US TV series are helpful as that is one of TV’s modern greats and a masterclass in writing and crafting a narrative and these comparisons may have built up expectations for me which I do not feel were fully delivered.
Amen Alonge is a vibrant new voice in crime fiction and I would be interested to see where he goes with this character next.

A Good Day To Die is published by Quercus on 17th February 2022. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

A Good Day to Die by Amen Alonge is a breath of fresh air. I did not know what to expect when I started reading it but was very pleasantly surprised. For a first novel, the book is extremely well written with an excellent plot, fantastic, well rounded characters and a surprise ending.
Some of the characters stand out and deserve their own book series eg the two Nigerian hitmen and Oleg the Russian arms dealer.
The book goes back and forward through time as it sets the scene about why Pretty Boy is who he is, and why he has come back after being away for 10 years. There is a lot of bloodshed in the book but it is all part of setting the scene.
I hope this is the first of a number of books with the same characters as I want to read more of their adventures.

Definitely a winner.

Very much the 21st century crime novel. Sex and violence, drugs and prostitution, and more violence. Full of action but somewhat thin on plot, this is an enjoyable novel for a quick read.

From the first chapter of A Good Day to Die, it was all systems go, I felt like I was in a Simon Kernick book.
There's no doubt this is a story aimed at men as it got super uncomfortably violent very, very fast.
Having said that, the first half was twisty and fast paced and I got really into it. And then I hit an entire chapter with a bit of background information about Pretty Boy's childhood and the end of that is where things went left. Although I see it gives the character motivation to do what he did, I felt that everything after that was a bit muddled. The timeline jumped around a lot and I didn't know if Lucas was his friend or not - I thought he was Jess' boyfriend but then they were friendly and I got thoroughly confused. I might have just got that wrong but this is a good example because you don't want your reader to be confused about any detail when it undermines a complex story with lots of characters, like this.
Overall, a promising start and I'd be happy to read more from this author, but I felt this book would benefit from some further edits.