The Bangbang Boys

After the brutal drug raid of a back-alley gay spa in Manila, the boys who make it out alive must decide what kind of men they want to become—and what they’ll risk—in this steamy crime saga.

The Philippines, 2016. Rodrigo Duterte has been elected president and his bloody war on drugs is revving up. Assassins on motorbikes rove the streets, killing in broad daylight. Dealers. Users. Suspects. Anyone.

But inside BangBang Touch, that turmoil is kept at bay. Bathed in neon lights, men from across Manila come to escape their ordinary lives and enjoy the company of the young male staff. Slowly, though, the rising conflict across the city begins to creep in. The body of one of the masseurs is pulled from a sewage drain, and not long after, a drug raid hits BangBang, scattering the survivors. Tough guy Benjie is captured by the police, broken, and reshaped into a professional killer. Gentle Manuel finds safety at an upscale spa where he reunites with a lost love, the kept woman of a corrupt congressman. And Lola, the bakla owner and manager of the massage parlor, is sent to the notorious Bilibid Prison, where she earns the attention of a dangerous gang leader. As their stories spin, fracture, and collide, each must decide what they are willing to sacrifice in order to survive.

Blending kinetic drama, sleazy thrills, and poetic intensity, Peter Zaragoza Mayshle's polyphonic debut unwinds via a chorus of hustlers, drug pushers, hit men, crooked cops, and rough trade. A wild, sweat-drenched literary crime novel, The BangBang Boys asks what it might mean to get ahead, to look out for your loves, and to survive whole in a world emperiled by authoritarian rule.