Lead Review (Good Scammer)

• Book: Good Scammer
• Location: Jamaica
• Author: Guy Kennaway

Review Author: tripfiction

Good Scammer by Guy Kennaway, novel set in Jamaica.

This novel is based on the true story  of “a criminal empire built on ingenuity, community and some serious hustle”

Anyone is a target and I wouldn’t be surprised () if the star character – Clive ‘Bangaz’ Thompson – was the brains behind the e mail scams that have been doing the rounds over the last few years. To wit, pay “a small handling fee” in order to release a six figure sum straight into the recipient’s bank account. Yeah, right. Or, what about those scams from the head of some unknown bank, who has to relieve themselves of funds and thus request your banking details for payment. This is the level of simple fraud that keeps Bangaz’s mind ticking over, and garners him quite some success… as it turns out.

The novel opens with a simple swindle whereby a greedy white couple is lured into buying an island that isn’t for sale and they part with several thousand dollars. Easy when you know how and you have an eye for an eager target. Even a stint working in a call centre offers opportunity for a mind open to fraud. At the end of the novel, just imagine, a book has arrived on a publisher’s desk with the working title: The Good Scammer, with resounding accolades – ‘fast, funny and authentic..’ (feel familiar?). Perhaps this is the ultimate scam, perpetrated on a publishing house that is intent on virtue-signalling.

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This novel is part written in the local patois, which adds authenticity yet takes quite a bit of work to understand. There are nods to colonialism (used as part justification for the modern scamming). There are thoughts about theft and victimhood. The author wrote a piece for us about the phenomenon of the all-inclusive hotel, which, he says, first found popularity in Jamaica (although I thought the first all-inclusive was established in Spain?). Tourists want somewhere safe to stay but, of course, whilst incarcerated within the walls of a luxurious building, they are not spending the money elsewhere; and they are not truly experiencing real Jamaica (and if they do, they are open to having the wool pulled over their eyes). Perhaps the all-inclusive resort is the ultimate scam? The author can be rather condescending about the people who would choose this kind of holiday.

The story is told with a wry sense of humour – which sometimes falls flat and perhaps won’t appeal to all – and certainly the author has a bit of an eye for describing the female body, swathed in a variety of clothes… which doesn’t really chime with current mores

A reasonably enjoyable mixed bag, which does transport the reader to Jamaica.

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