NO ONE GETS HURT
is published by The Do Not Press, and the ISBN is:
1 904 31607 7 (paperback, £6.99)
To order direct, click here.
For British reviews, click here.
To read Chapter One for free, click here.
Order your copy now.
No One Gets Hurt
To order direct, click here.
For British reviews, click here.
To read Chapter One for free, click here.
Order your copy now.
NO ONE GETS HURT
by
Russell James
published by the fiercely independent
Do Not Press
Why not read the first chapter - for free!
All you have to do is click - here.
You can order a copy direct from the publisher, by clicking here.
Tip: It's worth copying the title and ISBN first - i.e.
NO ONE GETS HURT
by Russell James
paperback £6.99
- ISBN:
1 904 31607 7
hardback £15
- ISBN:
1-904-316-06-9)
Would you like a signed edition?
I have a few mint conditions copies of my books that you can buy direct from me.
Check the titles for yourself by clicking here.
Or, if you must leave now,
why not go shopping at Books Online
or at Amazon
or at Tangled Web
My favourite specialist crime bookshop:
Murder One
STOP PRESS:
The Encyclopedia of Modern Crime Fiction says:
"Russell James shines his torch into the crevices of the British underworld
and turns what crawls out into some of the best crime fiction being written
today."
|
NO ONE GETS HURT
- controversial cover,
- controversial book!
No One Gets hurt
by Russell James
"A connoisseur of fear and menace" - says The Erotic Review
hardback: £15
(ISBN 1-904-316-06-9)
paperback: £6.99
(ISBN 1-904-316-07-7)
This is a strong and controversial book. NO ONE GETS HURT is a story that gets inside the sex industry.
It is not a titillating book, though it does contain a lot of explicit sex and violence. It's quite a moral book, in truth, showing that there are participants on both sides of the screen, and that the last claim anyone can hide behind is that 'no one gets hurt'.
But the book isn't a tract. Don't worry. I'm Russell James the thriller writer, and my tenth novel is hard, brutal and exciting.
Do you want an outline of
the PLOT?
or do you want to know
WHY I WROTE IT?
What's it about?
By no means is it a 'male' book. The heroine, Kirsty Rice, is a video journalist whose friend and colleague lost her life working undercover in the 'harmless' sex industry. Kirsty goes undercover too.
Grieving for her friend, sorrowful at the recent break-up with a fellow journalist, Kirsty finds that even that has left its mark. She is pregnant.
And as she worms her way in with the pornographers she finds that her ex-boyfriend is already close to them. They know his name. They say they have him on film. Now they have a little job for Kirsty. It's perfectly simple: just play things their way, do this one little thing - and she can rest assured that no one will get hurt.
Why not read the first chapter - for free!
All you have to do is click - here.
Why did I write this book?
The book raises an interesting question - one that few present-day authors dare to ask: is commercial sex harmless? How about other commercially driven hobbies, like gambling and drug use - are they harmless too? They were once thought decadent and degrading. Now they're everyday. But then, we're sophisticated now, aren't we? We're smart. We're not laughing at the flames that engulf Rome.
It's not surprising that people pay for sex. They always have (world's oldest profession and all) because the need for sex is natural and at times can be overwhelming. If you can't find a willing partner, the only recourse is your hand or someone either paid or coerced into doing it with you. Paying for sex will be with us always - but how about paying to watch someone else have sex? How natural is that?
Perfectly natural, it seems to many. Maybe we draw the line at viewing certain kinds of sex - kiddieporn is not for most of us - but we'll watch attractive adults perform on page, internet or screen.
When we watch the fantasy we don't think of the true story behind what we see - that this couple, threesome or whatever has been brought together to enact this for us, for money or for some darker reason. We watch girls brought in from the third world, we watch junkies, we watch those who see this as the only escape from poverty. We watch victims paid or beaten into giving us titillation.
But we don't think about that. We don't want the truth; we want the fantasy. After all, if they're not children, if they're (we wish) consenting adults, then where's the problem? No one gets hurt.
So that's all right then.
Kids at school try 'adult' drugs - well, where's the harm? People stuck in poverty waste their money on state sponsored gambling - where's the harm in that? Prostitutes hand over their earnings to brutal pimps - why should that matter to me? Women pleasure old drunks in sordid bedrooms, while others flirt with the rich and powerful in expense account bedrooms of top hotels. Why get in a tizz about any of it? One thing is certain: no one gets hurt.
No One Gets Hurt
- the latest Russell James.
|
The first review appeared in THE EROTIC REVIEW.
- In his long and serious review, Nicholas Seddon said:
It looms, the dread gathers, even before the pages open. In noir fiction - and Russell James is perhaps the doyen of the genre in Britain - death always comes, and it usually comes early...
The typical James hero is a man who defies an opposing world only to find, as he struggles, that he belongs to it and has its destructive inheritance inside, and he is, according to James, "trapped in a situation from which there must be no escape"... Through rapid prose and snappy dialogue, and against the backdrop of a London drawn in with evocative ease, there is no escape for anyone...
(To read the full review, click here.)
(Then, not to be confused with the above,)
Philip Oakes, in The Literary Review said:
"Busy, bruising thriller that gives the lowdown on Britain's thriving porn industry, now masterminded by gangland families who deftly deal in call girls, Internet sex and deep blue movies, the high spots of which include rape and sudden death. An investigating journo,
sneaking film for a documentary, becomes a victim (her battered body turns up in the Thames), and her fellow reporter Kirsty Rice (raring to go, but inconveniently pregnant), resolves to finish the job. Gangland politics, rough stuff and brutal revenge all set briskly in train. Not a sentence, not a second wasted. James gets on with it and delivers the goods.
Meanwhile, Crime Time magazine said:
This dark, disturbing novel confirms Russell James as one of the foremost exponents of the noir thriller on this side of the Atlantic...a plot with more twists and turns than a barrel-load of snakes...the compulsion to turn the pages is irresistible...This could well be the one that finally propels James into the big time.
Ahead of publication, the Bookseller picked out NO ONE GETS HURT as one to watch, calling it "dark and uncompromising" and saying the book "should be controversial".
The only other pre-publication quote came from the bookshop, Crime In Store, who (after giving a positive summary of the plot) took fright at the provocative cover, saying it was one that "you don't want to be seen on the tube with"!
And I thought they were so trendy...
You can play too: when you've read the book, whatever you thought of it, send me your review. You may even see it here on my website!
For example, author Rob Gittins emailed me to say:
"Just a quick note to say how much I enjoyed No-One Gets Hurt. Well worth the dodgy looks on tube trains as everyone copped a crafty gander at the cover."
|
To return to the top, click here.
The full review:
NO ONE GETS HURT as reviewed by Nicholas Seddon in The Erotic Revue:
It looms, the dread gathers, even before the pages open. In noir fiction - and Russell James is perhaps the doyen of the genre in Britain - death always comes, and it usually comes early. Oh No, Not My Baby, for example, starts with the ghastly death of an animal rights activist in the pulverizer of a meat processing plant, and the author generates from her death a vortex of violence into which all are drawn. But James is not only a connoisseur of fear and menace. He repeatedly forces us to pity those whom it is impossible to condone, including repellent paedophiles and ruthless gangsters, so that the horror and compassion couple promiscuously. He would have us look at this unconsoled and unconsoling world and see its twisted charms.
James' tenth novel opens with two video journalists, Kirsty and Zoë, compiling material for a documentary on the porn industry, and it graphically highlights the uneasy alliance of sex and death. While Kirsty spends two desultory days meeting Readers' Wives who all affirm with proleptic irony that "no one gets hurt", Zoë is first shafted for a video made by Van Cock Films, then forced to watch the rape of a fourteen year old girl and finally found, charred, in the silt of the Thames.
The typical James hero is a man who defies an opposing world only to find, as he struggles, that he belongs to it and has its destructive inheritance inside, and he is, according to James, "trapped in a situation from which there must be no escape". This time it's a woman, unexpectedly pregnant, grieving at the loss of a friend, burdened by an irrational sense of guilt and out for revenge. Yet through rapid prose and snappy dialogue, and against the backdrop of a London drawn in with evocative ease, there is no escape for anyone.
Following up the phone calls and emails that Zoë made before her death, Kirsty is forced to stare at videos of gang-banging, kiddie-fiddling and donkey fucking, to surf through web porn and to visit brothels, none of which titillates either her or us. In a story which explicitly questions the notion that commercial sex is harmless, she is swiftly tangled into the violence of an underworld that is immune to the law. And since the brutalised fourteen year old girl was the daughter of a gangster who wants blood in return, the unrepentant family which runs Van Cock Films finds itself hunted.
Alternating between the perspectives of each of the characters, the narrative shows that while threats are carried out and witnesses are intimidated, no one knows what anyone else knows, and while each is conscious of playing a "role" - whether voyeur or object, killer or victim - they don't always know which one. We are not reading for solutions. Since the "movies like a happy ending - but real life ain't like that", the few chinks of light experienced as moments of intimacy and love are soon blotted out. Life is unrelentingly dark; hope a failed idea. "After a tragedy occurs people are connected by a thousand invisible strings" which "dangle stupidly, groping in the void. This is the world now. You'll just have to get used to it."
To return to where you were, click here.