My grateful thanks to Sophie and Antara at FMcM for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for Good Scammer by Guy Kennaway and for sending me a copy of the book in return for an honest review. It’s my pleasure to share that review today.

Published on 7th December by Mensch, Good Scammer is available for purchase here.

Good Scammer

Good Scammer tells the story of Clive ‘Bangaz’ Thompson, an orphan born in west Jamaica raised with no love, education, nor prospects of ever getting a decent job.  He designs an ingenious business model that brings millions of dollars annually to the little villages around the sandy inlets of the Jamaican coast, making himself a vast personal fortune and a hero to his community.  He achieves all of this without using a knife or a gun or even the threat of violence.

Many people simply see scammers as criminals.

But Bangaz’s life, when seen from his perspective as a victim of the theft and duplicity of slavery and colonialism, tells a different, more complex human story.  Through his eyes, our sympathy and smiles justifiably remain with him and his righteous band of reparation bredren.

My Review of Good Scammer

Clive ‘Bangaz’ Thompson is having his life story written.

I confess that at the start I wasn’t sure I’d cope with Good Scammer because there’s quite a lot of phonetic ‘patwa’ in the speech, but within a few pages I had my ear and eye attuned and actually found it added colour, depth and flavour to the story. Indeed, one of the real strengths of Good Scammer is the very vivid sense of place created here. Guy Kennaway obviously knows Jamaica inside out and presents it not only with vivid clarity, but he does so warts and all, with humour and affection.

And that’s the true enjoyment of Good Scammer. Here we have a wide and engaging cast of characters with Bangaz at the heart of much of the action, but also occasionally simply being on the sidelines so that the reader gets a real insight into not only Jamaicans, but the different nationalities that arrive on the island. Through them, the true story of Good Scammer is told because, whilst those living in Jamaica are frequently and unapologetically scamming all and sundry, it’s those who believe themselves to be morally, intellectually or socially superior who are uncovered as every bit as criminal. What Guy Kennaway does in Good Scammer is to make anyone reading the book who takes the moral high ground find themselves on quicksand!

Good Scammer certainly has major themes like historical shame, reparation, theft and institutional corruption at its heart, but it is impossible not to fall in love with Bangaz who may not have a conventional education but who is quick-witted and wily and totally endearing. His ability to manipulate, to scam and yet to improve not only his own life, but that of those he holds dear makes him a kind of anti-hero whom it is impossible not to admire and respect.

I thought the interactions between Willy and Bangaz were quite brilliant. As Willy attempts to put Bangaz’s life story down on paper in an attempt to improve his own life, the reader is constantly entertained by the knowledge that neither man is being entirely honest with the other. Even better, in a modern world where there is so much greed and corruption, where literary prizes or a Netflix series are often seen as the ultimate aim for a writer Good Scammer shows that what really counts is loyalty, friendship and making your own way in life.

If that makes Good Scammer sound staid and preachily worthy – far from it. The story is witty, thought-provoking, entertaining and clever so that it engages completely. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

About Guy Kennaway

Guy Kennaway is a writer of fiction and memoir, born in the UK and who has lived in Jamaica for the past 35 years. One day, a man he had known since he was a child, demanded that Guy write his life story – of how he became one of the best scammers in West Jamaica.
Guy is best known for his novels One People, about village life in Jamaica; Bird Brain, about a bunch of optimistic pheasants, and for his memoir Time To Go about killing his mother (with her permission).
His most recent novel, The Accidental Collector, won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction in 2021. His most recent memoir is Foot Notes, a broad comedy about race and nationality which he wrote with his daughter-in-law’s brother Hussein Sharif. ‘In all my writing my aim is to delight and amuse,’ Kennaway has said. ‘Hopefully I make people laugh out loud. Laughter is our most effective weapon in the battle against the difficulties and struggles of life. If I can transport my reader to a happy, joyful world, my mission is successful.’

For further information, follow Guy on Twitter/X @guyken. and find Guy on Instagram and Facebook.

There’s more with these other bloggers too: