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Broken Cats & Cowboy Hats
While he’s still a baby, Mark Doughty’s family is torn apart by domestic violence. With his abusive father in police custody and his mother institutionalised, Mark is abandoned to an indifferent care system. Only one concerned social worker, Jackie Shannon, attempts to connect with him during a bleak childhood, but her attentions aren’t enough to prevent him from gradually hardening into a man whose only means of communication is through violence and intimidation. Doughty’s frustration with his dead-end life finally culminates in a brutal and unprovoked murder. His arresting officer, DI Jack Hogg, is pleased to see Doughty put away for life. But his worst fears are realised when Mark escapes from custody, obsessed with exacting retribution on the people he feels are responsible for his incarceration.
230 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 16, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 30, 2017
Mark's life got off to a bad start, then continued to get worse. An unremittingly bleak story.
September 27, 2011
Highly recommended A ++++++++
Broken Cats & Cowboy Hats is the story of the violence filled, failed life of Mark Doughty. Told partly in parallel flashbacks, it moves forward as he is arrested for an unprovoked nightclub murder by stabbing then threatens witnesses from his remand centre while awaiting trial.
Although fast paced and exciting enough to please fans of crime/thriller novels, Broken Cats and Cowboy Hats is not your average plot driven crime novel. The characters, in particular Mark Doughty himself, have a depth to them that so often can be missing in contemporary literature. That depth arouses our sympathy, maybe even empathy, and certainly offers an explanation as to why Mark behaves as he does. It would be too easy to condemn Doughty, too easy to categorise him as the criminal and Mr Knowles writing does not take that easy option. Is Doughty the criminal, or is Mark the real victim? A question we could, maybe even should, be asking ourselves in today's society.
This novel makes you think and is certainly worthy of the 'page turner' label. However it is more. It makes you think certainly, but it also makes you feel something. And it is that feeling which will remain long after the last page has been turned.
I highly, highly recommend this work.
Broken Cats & Cowboy Hats
Broken Cats & Cowboy Hats is the story of the violence filled, failed life of Mark Doughty. Told partly in parallel flashbacks, it moves forward as he is arrested for an unprovoked nightclub murder by stabbing then threatens witnesses from his remand centre while awaiting trial.
Although fast paced and exciting enough to please fans of crime/thriller novels, Broken Cats and Cowboy Hats is not your average plot driven crime novel. The characters, in particular Mark Doughty himself, have a depth to them that so often can be missing in contemporary literature. That depth arouses our sympathy, maybe even empathy, and certainly offers an explanation as to why Mark behaves as he does. It would be too easy to condemn Doughty, too easy to categorise him as the criminal and Mr Knowles writing does not take that easy option. Is Doughty the criminal, or is Mark the real victim? A question we could, maybe even should, be asking ourselves in today's society.
This novel makes you think and is certainly worthy of the 'page turner' label. However it is more. It makes you think certainly, but it also makes you feel something. And it is that feeling which will remain long after the last page has been turned.
I highly, highly recommend this work.
Broken Cats & Cowboy Hats
September 26, 2012
This book is an incredible insight into a life, moulded at birth by family, circumstances and events totally out of the person’s control.
Mark Doughty became the person he did through a series of events both intentional and unintentional, the result of which was to mould an innocent baby into a very different man.
By picking on a young girl, he sets in place a chain of events, which will change the lives of everyone involved with him.
Incidentally, if anyone had told me my reaction to the end of the book at the beginning I would never have believed them.
I downloaded this book so I could read all Roger Knowles books, I didn’t know what to expect and I hadn’t read any reviews. From the start I realised it wasn’t the sort of book I would ordinarily have picked, but, it was a tale that had a right to be told. There must be many people to whom this story will ring a bell, far more, I imagine than I would like to think.
I can only say well done to Roger for writing such an amazing, if harrowing piece of work. I hope others will read it because, it gives those who do, an insight into a world hopefully they may never experience.
Mark Doughty became the person he did through a series of events both intentional and unintentional, the result of which was to mould an innocent baby into a very different man.
By picking on a young girl, he sets in place a chain of events, which will change the lives of everyone involved with him.
Incidentally, if anyone had told me my reaction to the end of the book at the beginning I would never have believed them.
I downloaded this book so I could read all Roger Knowles books, I didn’t know what to expect and I hadn’t read any reviews. From the start I realised it wasn’t the sort of book I would ordinarily have picked, but, it was a tale that had a right to be told. There must be many people to whom this story will ring a bell, far more, I imagine than I would like to think.
I can only say well done to Roger for writing such an amazing, if harrowing piece of work. I hope others will read it because, it gives those who do, an insight into a world hopefully they may never experience.
May 23, 2012
The first half of this book was excellent. Well written, and kept my attention. Impressive character development, which swings a person between extremes of feeling sympathy and revulsion... should the main character be pitied or hated? Unfortunately, the second half lost me. All connection and sympathy was lost, only weakly returning at the very end, to a drawn out detour.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews