Biography

Bryan J Mason wrote his first novel, Shaking Hands with the Devil, in the late 1980s, but failed to get it published and put it away in a drawer. 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 before becoming a full-time crime writer. As well as crime writing he writes regular theatre reviews and writes and directs an annual community pantomime.

An Old Tin Can was the first in a black comedy crime series set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, followed by Dead On. The trilogy concludes with the ominously titled ‘There Are No Happy Endings’ published on 1 October 2026 and available to pre-0rder now. 

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

A member of the Crime Writers Association and Society of Authors, 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.