SH*T SHOW

by Brian O'Sullivan

A minor fender bender leads to catastophic consequences!

SH*T SHOW, the upcoming novel by Brian O'Sullivan, promises to be his best yet!

It will be released on August 14th, 2026, and is available for pre-order now!

Genres: Thriller

374 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 14, 2026

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Donna Mallery]

I love all of Brian’s books! He has a quirky sense of humor, and his books have unique themes. I caught the cameo where he briefly mentions a protagonist from a series by him. His books are like detective series because they outline various methods of solving crimes. Yet the protagonist is just an average, albeit intelligent man. I’m never in a rush or feel anxious to get to the end. I just enjoy the ride!

[Frannie Reads]

Absolutely fantastic read! Totally incredible from the first page to the last. Brilliant character development. I was so invested in too many of them and every change of POV revealed another plot twist I didn't see coming.
LOVED the short chapters. LOVED all the twists and turns. LOVE, LOVE LOVED it all. I truly feel like I just got off the best roller-coaster ride ever! Total Sh*t Show and I am here for it!

[Mrs. Kathy Rogers]

Holy Sh*t this deserves 10 stars

I didn't want this book to end!!!! Just when you thought you figured it out the great Brian throws a massive curveball. I just love the different POV'S that keep you engaged!! Never stop this writing thing Brian cause you got a great thing going. Thanks for the great book

[Sabrina Zoeller]

It kept me guessing and the short chapters made it impossible to put down. If you enjoyed Clusterf*ck, definitely give this one a try!

[Brittany Duncan]

2.5 stars rounded up.

This book started strong for me but I felt it became more predictable as the story progressed. I also felt like there were a lot of unnecessary points that were discussed repeatedly or at length but ended up not being related to the story in any way.

[Octavia Daenerys Henstridge]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I grabbed Sh*t Show by Brian O’Sullivan the second I saw the title because I absolutely loved Cluster Fck* and, frankly, profanity in a book title is going to get me every damn time. 😂

And this one DID NOT DISAPPOINT.

I finished it in less than 24 hours, and it was, indeed, a raging Sh*t Show in the very best possible way.

Now, I did figure out the big bad pretty early on. Potential spoiler ahead: “I’m sorry I had to” was the dead giveaway for me. 👀

But did that stop me from tearing through the rest of the book?

Absolutely not.

Brian O’Sullivan has this ridiculously addictive way of writing. It’s fast-paced, chaotic, funny, and so compulsively readable that putting the book down feels like an unreasonable request. I just kept thinking, one more chapter… which, as we all know, is one of the biggest lies readers tell themselves.

I could NOT put it down.

At this point, Brian O’Sullivan is going to need to hunker down and start writing much faster if he intends to keep up with his readers, because I am READY FOR MORE.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Five stars. No notes. Just give me the next glorious disaster.

Could not recommend this one more. What an amazingly good time! 📚🔥

[Heather Kenney]

You did it again Brian!! Another 5-star read! Sh*t Show really lived up to the title. This book kept me so engaged; I missed my bedtime last night. I absolutely love Brian's humor tossed in. The short chapters make it a nice quick read. I LOVED the mention of my favorite character from another book series of his! Actually, let's just say I LOVED it all! If you haven't ordered your copy, what are you waiting for?

[Amy K]

Yikes!

This book was aptly named! What a sh*t show at Skit Show! Brian, your brain might be a little twisted! This stuff just doesn't happen in my quiet, rural, bucolic life. I have whiplash from the twists.

I love that this book was laid out in parts depending on the point of view. It is so much easier for me to keep track of who is talking when the POV isn't flipping back and forth from one chapter to the next....especially when listening to an audio book versus reading.

[Danetta Balandra]

This was one of those books you start and can’t put down. I love Brian’s quirky sense of humor, and just when I thought I figured it out, something else would happen. 10/10. If you haven’t read a book by Brian yet, you’re missing out!

[Lisa Plank]

Liked the changing POVs and it was an easy read. Cool story line too. Kept me reading late into the night, like a train wreck!

[Amy Hughes]

i could not put this down, so many twists I HAD to know what happened next! I predicted the ending, but that is ok! Brian's books keep me so engaged, I hate when they are over, it is hard to find something to follow a good book!

I loved the back and forth views from the characters. It was a masterpiece!!!

When is the next one Brian?!

[Janice Stone]

Wow!

A great fast paced read! Well done! Definitely lots of crazy stuff. Brian outdid himself on this one. The characters were all super relatable.

[Allison Singleton]

Loved this book. The short chapters are amazing and loved the story & so many twists!

[Karen Graham]

so many twists and turns

Brian O’Sullivan does it again. This book keeps twisting and turning until the end. Lots of suspense and a great read.

[Stacy]

My new favorite stand alone by Brian! Fast paced & great plot! The twists kept coming! My head couldn’t decide where to go. Thanks for another great page turner Brian!

[Christina Martin]

I had really high expectations for this book since Cluster F*ck was so good. NGL this book was disappointing. The long drawn out back stories were really hard to get passed. I almost DNF! The only reason I gave it 3 stars was because the ending wasn't that bad. I will still continue to read Brian's books because he really is a great author, not all of them can please everyone and this is just one person's opinion.

[Debbie vs. Her TBR]

SH*T SHOW
by Brian O’Sullivan
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 (SH*T SHOW: because apparently “Everything Is F*cked!” was too long for the cover.)

POV: You get into a minor fender bender and think, “Well, that was annoying.” Meanwhile, the other guy has apparently decided this is now his villain origin story and ruining your entire f-ing life is his new full-time job.

Brian O’Sullivan really looked at a minor fender bender and thought, “but what if this became everyone’s friggin’ problem?” 😂

Atticus Tarlach Mitchell - Mitch, because apparently his parents named him like they expected him to either become a Supreme Court justice, challenge someone to a duel, inherit an estate, or solve a murder… in 1847 - is out driving one morning when he gets into a minor accident.

ATTICUS TARLACH.

Sir, were you born or summoned from a mid-19th-century oil painting?

Anyways…

Annoying? Yes.
Inconvenient? Sure.
Reason to completely dismantle another human being’s life? APPARENTLY.

Because the other driver is not your standard pissed-off motorist. Nay nay. This man is described as closer to seven feet than six, closer to 300 pounds than 200, and is very appropriately described by Mitch as a livid behemoth.

Not to his face, obviously.

Mitch may be sarcastic, but he does possess survival instincts. 🤣

And that sarcasm was probably my favourite thing about him. Mitch is exactly the kind of thriller protagonist I enjoy because apparently his coping mechanism is making smart-ass observations while his life is actively beginning to go sideways. There’s something wonderfully relatable about a man looking at an increasingly concerning situation and still finding time to mentally roast everyone involved.

At first, though, life goes back to normal.

Mitch goes home to his wife, Hannah, and their almost-one-year-old daughter, Bella. He goes to work. He banters with his coworkers. They make lunch plans. Regular life continues.

Until it… doesn’t.

Because strange little things start happening.

Then slightly less little things.

Then Mitch finds his tire with a suspiciously clean three-inch slash in it and suddenly we have progressed from:

“Well, that guy was an asshole.”
to:
“…did that asshole FIND ME?”

And somewhere along the way we go from “insurance will handle this” to “DO WE NEED TO CALL THE FBI?”

What I really liked is that O’Sullivan doesn’t immediately launch Mitch out of a cannon into Thrillerland. He gives us enough time inside Mitch’s ordinary life that the intrusion into it actually feels unsettling. His coworkers - Sterling, Denise, Seth and Ashley - feel like actual people rather than names inserted whenever the plot requires another human body, and there’s more emotional depth tucked into some of their stories than I expected.

Also, Mitch works for a company called Skit Show, a name he deliberately chose because it sounds like shit show.

Which was cute when it was a joke about his company.

Less cute when the universe apparently heard him and said:

“OH, YOU WANT A SHIT SHOW? HOLD MY BEER.” 😂

And then there’s Hannah.

I REALLY liked Mitch and Hannah together.

We actually get some of their history, including how they met, and it gives their marriage personality beyond Generic Thriller Wife Who Exists Primarily To Be Threatened. Hannah is funny, bold and perceptive as hell; she reads Mitch immediately, their banter feels natural, and you understand very quickly why these two ended up together.

Which is lovely.

It is also deeply suspicious behaviour from an author writing a book called SH*T SHOW - I’m lookin’ at you, Brian.

Heeey buddy, why are you making me emotionally attached to this adorable little family? Hmm?

PUT. THE. SLEDGEHAMMER. DOWN.

😂

And that’s where the book starts becoming deliciously stressful, because this isn’t just about Mitch anymore. The story starts widening, the POVs start giving you pieces Mitch doesn’t have, and what initially looks like one seriously unhinged case of road rage turns into something much, much bigger.

Enter suspicious deaths, buried connections, questionable alibis, increasingly WTF revelations and Marvin Wopat, our bald, mustachioed agent of chaos, who arrives with his PI credentials and proceeds to start yanking on threads that perhaps should have remained the f*ck alone. 😂

And just when you think you’ve figured out where this absolute shit show is headed, O’Sullivan gleefully kicks the murder board over and hands you another roll of red string.

Basically:

Us: “AHA! WE GOT IT.” 🕵🏻‍♀️📌
Brian: kick 🦵🏻💥
Us: “JESUS TAP-DANCING CHRIST.”
Brian: 🧶 “Here. You’re gonna need this.”

😂

That was probably my favourite thing about the mystery. There were several points where I was completely satisfied that I understood what was happening.

I did not.

Then I understood it FOR REAL.

I did not.

At some point, I stopped trying to stay ahead of Brian O’Sullivan, The Sh*t Show Ringmaster, and simply accepted my place in the audience.

Eventually you stop trusting everybody, including yourself, and accept that Brian is apparently operating on Psychopathic LinkedIn Premium while the rest of us are crawling around on the floor trying to reconnect the red string. 😂

Seriously, the number of times I mentally rearranged the murder board should qualify as cardio.

One minute:

THAT’S IT. THAT’S THE CONNECTION.

Five pages later:

Nope.

New string.

New pin.

New suspect.

Somebody bring me a bigger corkboard.

And somehow, despite having multiple POVs, suspicious deaths, old connections, new connections, people investigating other people, people lying about other people and approximately fourteen different flavours of WHAT THE F*CK, it never became the kind of convoluted where I stopped caring.

Quite the opposite.

I needed answers.

Unfortunately, every answer seemed to arrive holding hands with three additional questions.

Rude.

Through all of it, though, Mitch remains Mitch: sarcastic, likeable, protective of his family and increasingly aware that he may have accidentally wandered into a situation approximately 9,827 levels above his original “some asshole slashed my tire” pay grade.

And his decision-making?

Oh, Mitch.

😂

There are several moments where the reasonable-person response is clearly:

CALL. SOMEONE. QUALIFIED.

Mitch’s response is occasionally closer to:

Interesting. Perhaps I should personally investigate this increasingly dangerous situation using sarcasm, vibes and whatever plan I can assemble on the way there.

Sir.

You have a wife.

You have a baby.

You are ATTICUS TARLACH, not Jason Bourne.

🤣

But honestly, that’s part of why I liked him. He isn’t some flawless thriller protagonist who suddenly develops tactical expertise because the plot requires it. He gets scared. He screws up. He gets angry. He makes some genuinely questionable choices and occasionally seems just as surprised as I was that any of them actually worked.

And because the stakes eventually reach his family, the chaos stops being merely entertaining and becomes genuinely stressful. Hannah and Bella aren’t just convenient thriller leverage; I actually cared about them, which meant every new escalation had me somewhere between:

“OH COME ON.”
and
“BRIAN, I SWEAR TO GOD, LEAVE THAT FAMILY ALONE.”

Spoiler alert regarding Brian’s willingness to listen to me:

He did not.

😂

And Hannah only got better as the book went on.

Without giving away HOW or WHY, there comes a point where Hannah essentially evolves from:

Funny, perceptive wife who knows Mitch is hiding something

into:

ABSOLUTELY THE F*CK NOT, THAT IS MY HUSBAND.

And I loved every second of it.

Turns out Mitch isn’t the only member of this marriage capable of looking at a completely unreasonable situation and thinking:

Shag it. I have an idea.

They really are perfect for each other.

Possibly because neither one should be left unsupervised.

😂

By the final stretch, the escalation has become so spectacular that I had to stop periodically and appreciate just how far we had travelled from:

minor fender bender
to:
JESUS CHRIST, HOW THE F*CK DID WE GET HERE?

And I am saying NOTHING ELSE about that because the last chunk of this book is best experienced knowing as little as possible.

There were reveals I expected.

Reveals I absolutely did not expect.

Moments where I thought I had finally figured out the entire picture.

Moments where Brian apparently saw me feeling confident and went:

“Oh, that’s adorable.”

🦵🏻💥📌🧶

And eventually the red string wasn’t even on the murder board anymore.

It was on the floor.

Around my ankles.

Possibly around my neck.

The Sh*t Show Ringmaster had won.

😂

⸻

⚠️ Tiny end-of-book spoiler ahead, but I cannot NOT discuss this man’s naming privileges:

Because apparently we needed one final confirmation that Mitch’s particular brand of insanity survives whatever-the-actual-f*ck happens in this book.

His parents gave him Atticus Tarlach Mitchell, a name that suggests he arrived on horseback carrying sealed correspondence from the Duke…

…and this mofo eventually looks toward the next generation and thinks:

“You know what this family needs? Marvin.”

Hannah asks him to name three famous Marvins.

Mitch produces Marvin Gaye.

Then Lee Marvin, which Hannah correctly points out does not count because Marvin is his LAST NAME, you doofus.

And finally… Marvelous Marvin Hagler.

Which naturally leads this lunatic to suggest:
MARVELOUS MARVIN MITCHELL.

💀💀💀

Hannah: The generational naming trauma ends with me.

Thankfully, she vetoes this felony against birth certificates.

But Mitch still manages to secure his Triple-M baby:

Miles Marvin Mitchell.

And okay.

That’s objectively adorable.

But Hannah insisting their child deserves at least a normal FIRST name is friggin’ hilarious considering she willingly married ATTICUS TARLACH. 😂

And after everything Brian puts these people - AND ME, AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER - through, the ending gives us just enough sweetness to remind us why I cared about Mitch and his family so much in the first place.

Which was RUDE.

Sir.

I came here for murder.

Why am I emotionally invested in a birth certificate?

😂

But naming crimes aside…

This is exactly my kind of thriller: fast, dark, funny in all the right places, populated by characters I actually care about, and built around an everyday situation that spirals so spectacularly out of control that the title eventually stops feeling dramatic and starts feeling like an official diagnosis.

There are a LOT of moving pieces, but O’Sullivan kept giving me just enough information to make me feel clever without giving me enough information to actually BE clever.

Frankly, I resent that.

😂

SH*T SHOW certainly lives up to its name.

By the time things really start going off the rails, there is no longer a train.

There are no tracks.

The station has been condemned.

The murder board has achieved sentience.

Brian O’Sullivan, The Sh*t Show Ringmaster, is standing somewhere in the distance holding another roll of red string.

Mitch has approximately 47 new reasons to consider never leaving his house again.

And I’m sitting there wondering how the F*CK we got here from a fender bender.

There is only Mitch, chaos, approximately seventeen feet of red string, and the growing realization that the accident at the beginning of this book was merely the universe cracking its knuckles.

Final verdict:
4.5⭐️ - Would recommend to: thriller readers who enjoy escalating chaos, dark humour, genuinely likeable characters, multiple POVs, family stakes, sarcastic protagonists, twisty mysteries, suspicious deaths, questionable decisions, and stories where one completely ordinary day makes a hard left into:

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL F*CK IS HAPPENING.

😂📚🔥

[Jessica Hinton Leport]

Reading the first sentence I knew this book was going to be good. Started with a fender bender and then Mitch and his family continued to be harassed. He would so anything to protect his family. A bad night for Mitch, hiring a PI and the continued need to find answers. What and who is next? What did Mitch do wrong? The more he learned the more protected he was for his family and had to find the answers and a way to take the bad guy down. What a surprise ending but glad to see love survived it all. Well done again Brian!

[Amber]

Work got in the way! I wanted to just sit and read, but no! Had to go adult.

Another amazing read, fast paced, great story!

Thank you for another amazing read.

I loved Cluster F*CK and loved this one too!

[Caroline Masterson]

Brian has done it again!

Just finished Shit Show and loved it. Between the great characters and short chapters, it’s impossible to put down. What a great new character in Mitch! The plot line is like nothing I’ve read before and had me turning the pages until the sun came up. Of course I also loved that Bobby’s name was thrown in for a hot second….I actually get a thrill from all his books when another character gets woven in to a current book.
Keep them coming O’Sullivan…I’m here for it!
😂”Your biggest fan”😂~Carrie

[Shannon]

Alright, Brian, I’m officially a big fan. This is the second book I’ve read by you that I couldn’t put down.

This book truly had me guessing the whole time. It is told from different character perspectives and that kept it fresh and interesting. I also love the of humor thrown it at the right times. I will for sure be reading many more books by this author.

[Nicole]

4.5 rounded up

This book starts out as a shit show… Mitch gets into what appears to be a minor fender bender, but quickly realizes there is much more to worry about. He has a seemingly perfect job and perfect family… but things quickly flip upside down. Between lovers, friends and coworkers, do you really know people as well as you think? Get ready for a wild ride because this book certainly has a lot of twists and turns!



#bestestbookclubever

[Lauri R]

Great Book

I was really looking forward to Brian O’Sullivan’s latest release SH Show & it did not disappoint. Just like every one of his other books it kept me eager to reach the next page. Now I’m once again waiting for his next book!

[Toni]

Unbelievably amazing! One of my 2 favorite authors has done it again!

[Sherry]

All the emotions

Another amazing read from the brilliant Brian O'Sullivan! I couldn't read fast enough. Do yourself a favor and get on the BOS bandwagon! Not one bad read! ❤️‍🔥

[Terri Stewart]

It should be called against all odds. It was another good read from Brian O'Sullivan. As of right now I have read all that he has written (unless there are some I don't know about). I will continue to read all of his future books as well and look forward to the next one.

[Kayla]

Another great book from Brian! I lost sleep to stay up and finish this one.

[Laura Billson]

I just absolutely love this guy. His books are just fantastic, short chapters, lots of twists and turns and absolutely hilarious!! Highly recommended!!

[Su]

Again another great book!

[Suleika Ore]

Lots of plot twists!! Fast reading chapters too! Love it!!