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.

Men from all over Manila sneak away to the BangBang Touch spa to enjoy the company of its young male staff, to unwind under skilled hands that will rub their worries away, or, for the right price, provide extra services to the eager clientele. The BangBang Boys are rowdy, foul-mouthed, competitive, and fiercely loyal to one another, aware that outside the massage parlor’s walls, the escalating drug war is claiming lives across the city. And the danger is closing in.

Soon after the body of their friend and fellow masseur is pulled from a sewage drain, a busy night shift is cut short by a brutal police raid that claims the lives of clients and masahistas alike. The scattered survivors try to reckon with the tragedy while searching for answers, desperate to understand how and why they became targets.

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 fracture and collide, each is forced to sacrifice who and what they love just to survive.

Blending propulsive drama, sleazy thrills, and poetic intensity, Peter Zaragoza Mayshle’s polyphonic
debut unwinds via a chorus of drug pushers, hit men, crooked cops, and rough trade. A wild, sweat-drenched literary crime novel, The BangBang Boys interrogates the costs of pleasure, addiction, and survival in a world imperiled by authoritarian rule.