Cleaners Wanted by Alex Franklin ~ Readalong Review

In Alex Franklyns second novel she moves into a comedy, gangster crime caper, where we meet John and Billy (Biben), who are quite the disaster area when asked to perform most duties let alone taking on board the role of cleaners for a rouge hitman Daniel.

Both dissatisfied with only being warehouse workers for the London Docklands lady mobster Ruby Girthwaite (who wouldn’t trust them to handle a door knob let alone a deal) they look for additional work to pay the bills. The local hood pub landlord puts them in contact with his old mate Daniel who is desperate for a couple of people to ‘work after hours’.

Things start to go awry when they realise that their rouge hitman turns out to have his vendetta against their main boss Ruby due to some unfinished business, definitely resulting in a conflict of interest for them.

With the long suffering police detective chasing after Ruby for years they hope to catch her via the pub landlord, John and Billy. With the hits going wrong and information being leaked, the confusion leads to some ridiculous and unexpected turns of events.

Trigger warnings: profanity, some inappropriate comments, stupid, brain candy and absolutely no intellectual nutritional value in this book whatsoever… like chocolate cake.

I really enjoyed this book; at times, it had me laughing out loud, and some of those times, it was uncontrollably! This book has a few main characters, but none of them disappoint! Our policeman; Caulter, was determined to prove himself to those higher up and really wanted to get Ruby bang to rights. His patience whilst interviewing Jack was definitely being tested, but at times, that was by Giles and not just Jack!

Jack was like our 'storyteller' in the book as he was being interviewed by Caulter and as he was informing on John, Billy, and Daniel and sharing what he knew, the stories just got worse and worse—for Billy and John, that is, not for reading! The hilarity that these stories gave was just brilliant. And the best of it was, the characters had been set up so well that you could actually believe that it was happening and it was something that they would do.

I did feel sorry for Jack though as he shared his own story of how he met Daniel and the circumstances of losing his hand as well as his wife. Daniel seemed that he was a character that was out of control and on the edge, and that didn't seem like it was all just a new thing either!

I honestly wasn't sure where this was going to end, but as the storyline developed and I realized what was actually going on, I just thought that it was brilliant! It was a really good mystery with comedy too. I loved the writing style and would love to hear more from the characters and see what trouble they find themselves in next, as let's be honest - it's inevitable.

You can grab a copy here #Aff (If you buy a copy through this link I get a teeny commission of the sale from Amazon)

Huge Thanks to Love Books Tours, Alex Franklyn & Spellbound Books for my place on the readalong.