Bryan J Mason

Bryan J Mason wrote his first novel, Shaking Hands with the Devil, in the late 1980s, but put it away, concluding he was a failed author after failing to get it published. He finally redrafted it and was delighted to find success over thirty years since the first draft.

He has worked as a financial investigator, a mediator and made sound effects for BBC Radio. He is now a full-time crime writer. As well as crime writing he writes regular theatre reviews and co-writes and directs an annual community pantomime.

An Old Tin Can was the first in a new black comedy crime series set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, followed by Dead On published on 5 November 2025. The trilogy will conclude with the ominously titled ‘There Are No Happy Endings‘.

He describes his genre as ‘black comedy crime’ and enjoys writing in a historical context, which possibly owes something to being a history graduate, but could just be an aversion to writing about modern scientific forensics and CCTV. He is planning a new series set in a Victorian undertakers.

A member of the Crime Writers Association, Society of Authors and Historical Writers Association, he lives in Bristol with his wife and has two children in their twenties. He enjoys swimming, eating out and the theatre, but is never happier than when hanging around in graveyards, which he thinks might come in handy one day.