'Soul Destruction' Author Draws Inspiration From A London Call Girl

In our ongoing series of WCI interviews, we're talking today with Ruth Jacobs, a novelist who lives near London, about her life as a writer. Jacobs studied prostitution in the late 1990s. She draws on her research and the women she has interviewed for inspiration. In addition to her fiction writing, Jacobs is involved in nonfiction for charity and human rights campaigning in the areas of anti-sexual exploitation and anti-human trafficking.

Women in Crime Ink: Welcome, Ruth. Tell us about your writing background. When did you begin writing, and what inspired you?

Ruth Jacobs: My grandmother was a writer and I’m sure that’s what made me want to write. I wrote poetry as a young teenager then started writing a book at sixteen. I wrote on and off over the years, but it wasn’t until 2010 when I started the first Soul Destruction book that I actually went on to complete my first novel.  That was Soul Destruction: Unforgivable, which was published earlier this year. Last year, I published In Her Own Words... Interview with a London Call Girl, which is the transcript of a video interview I undertook with a woman working as a call girl in London for my research on prostitution in the late 1990s. The woman interviewed was a very dear friend, and as she is no longer alive, all the royalties from that publication are donated to Beyond the Streets, a charity working to end sexual exploitation.

WCI: How often do you write? And how do you manage to fit in writing among other commitments?

RJ: For my fiction writing, I don’t have a fixed time currently, but that’s about to change as I get back into writing the second book in the Soul Destruction series. When I was working on the first book, I had a schedule of writing every evening. It was difficult with two children and a job, but I found the time by keeping the television switched off. I was also completely hooked on my characters and their world, and I couldn’t stay away for long because when I wasn’t writing about them, I was obsessing about them and the story.

WCI: In which genre do you most enjoy writing?

RJ: Crime fiction.

WCI: What draws you to write in that genre?

RJ: It’s the genre I most enjoy reading and having been on a death wish from my teens to mid-twenties, my past can be useful sometimes.

WCI: What is your current project(s)?

With author Harry Dunn

RJ: My novel, Soul Destruction: Unforgivable, was published earlier this year by Caffeine Nights. The story follows Shelley Hansard, a heroin addicted and crack psychotic London call girl who gets the opportunity to take revenge on a client who raped her and her friends.

WCI: What has the reaction been to your book from readers?

RJ: The feedback has been great with many readers telling me they were unable to put the book down. Other comments have included the book being real and graphic, having a fast-paced plot, unexpected twists, that the story is told in a compassionate way, and that it takes the false glamour out of prostitution.

WCI: What are two of your favorite books, and why?

RJ: Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting is one, but after countless failed overdoses and with posttraumatic stress disorder, my memory is so terrible that I can’t recall precisely why. I would have enjoyed the Scottish dialect because all my family come from Scotland, and I would have also enjoyed the story as that was my world at the time - heroin addiction. For a second book, I’m compelled to say London Fields by Martin Amis who I was obsessed with reading many years ago. Again, with my poor memory, I cannot remember why (Trainspotting was at an advantage as I’ve watched the film countless times over the years), but because of my poor memory and because after so long I remember the name of a character, Nicola Six, that book must have impacted me. I must reread it soon.

WCI: What are your writing plans for the future?

RJ: I’m about to pick back up writing the second book in the Soul Destruction series. It has a title but in case it changes, I’m not sharing it yet. From my experience writing the first book and being led away from my original plot by the characters, I know that could happen in this book too and, if it does, then the title might need to be changed.

I’m involved in non-fiction for charity and human rights campaigning, currently pushing for the Merseyside model to be made UK wide. This will mean all crimes against people in prostitution will be treated as hate crimes. Where it has been running in Merseyside since 2006, reporting and conviction rates have increased hugely. I’ve written a couple of articles about the Merseyside model for feminist websites including Ms Blog, and I’m currently running a series of interviews on my own website.

I have an article to write for an anthology on prostitution so I will be making a start on that project in the summer. A short piece of non-fiction I wrote is being published soon in The Survivor Anthology. And a short story I wrote called Life will be published as an e-book by Caffeine Nights in the next week or two.

WCI: Is there anything else we should know?

RJ: Although I write fiction, my work is very real. It’s important to me when writing about prostitution that it isn’t glamorized as it so often is in other books, films and on television. I want to show it for what it is - a dangerous and traumatic way to earn money. Most women in prostitution have been abused as children. Most women in prostitution have suffered rape multiple times. And most women in prostitution meet the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder. I share many similarities in this, and I hope that enables me to keep my characters real, and my stories true to life. That’s very important to me.

WCI: Where can readers learn more about you and your writing?

RJ: On the Soul Destruction website and on my author website.

Ruth Jacobs' series of novels, titled Soul Destruction, expose the dark world and the harsh reality of life as a call girl. Her debut novel, Soul Destruction: Unforgivable, was released in April 2013 by Caffeine Nights. It is a free download on Amazon today, April 24th, through Monday, April 27th. Click here to download.

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Two New Stacy Dittrich Books Hit the Shelves!

NONFICTION
Stumbling along the Beat:
A Policewoman’s Uncensored Story from the World of Law Enforcement

When you’re a cop, you lay your life on the line every day. It’s one of the toughest jobs in the world, and the common belief that women aren’t up to it doesn’t make it any easier. But even as a kid, Stacy Dittrich craved the adrenaline rush of putting bad guys behind bars. When her father and uncles, all police officers, gathered to share their stories, Stacy was in the front row. Riding along in her father’s cruiser with the sirens blaring, she knew she’d found something that could make her feel alive.

There were dark days on the beat, days when Stacy, a detective specializing in sex crimes, could hardly believe the horrors she faced. Parents whose neglect of their own children seemed outright evil. Men and women whose sadistic acts made the world a terrifying place. But for Stacy, getting these depraved criminals off the streets was all that mattered. She was protecting the innocent, doing whatever she could to help them feel safe … until she became a target herself. Terrifyingly, some of the most dangerous people she encountered were her fellow cops. And they would not stop until Stacy gave up—her career, her dreams, and even her life.

But Stacy Dittrich was no victim.

Broken. Bloodied. Stabbed in the back. Stumbling Along the Beat, Stacy Dittrich never knew which one she’d be. But the desire for danger was in her blood—and the hunt for justice was all that mattered to her. This is her brutally honest, true story of survival on the streets.

Stacy Dittrich’s father, retired police lieutenant Joseph Wendling, wrote the foreword for this book. The book's already grabbed the attention of a few people we’ve heard of.

“Humorous and shocking, Stacy Dittrich’s account of life as a female police officer and growing up in a law enforcement family will undoubtedly grab your attention. A fascinating read!”
--Ray Liotta, award-winning actor and star of Goodfellas and Cop Land.

 

FICTION
In The Body Mafia, the third book in Stacy Dittrich’s intense CeeCee Gallagher thriller series, CeeCee risks her life to uncover a ring of Mafia killers who murder people to sell their body parts on the black market. When the bodies of local homeless men begin turning up missing major organs, Detective CeeCee Gallagher is hot on the trail of the perpetrators. Only after her husband, FBI Agent Michael Hagerman, is the target of a car bomb, does CeeCee realize what she’s really dealing with. This is no mere madman. These killers are organized—and more dangerous than any CeeCee’s seen before.

Both of Stacy Dittrich's new books are available in bookstores and online now. She'll be signing STUMBLING ALONG THE BEAT and THE BODY MAFIA on Saturday, May 8th, at Barnes and Noble, Mansfield, Ohio from 5pm-7pm.

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The Lovely Bones: Read it Before You See it

by Stacy Dittrich

In August 2009, I was vacationing on the beautiful Cape Fear coast of North Carolina. I'd sworn a personal oath that I'd simply enjoy the time with my family and do absolutely no work. I had just completed a more difficult than usual manuscript and found myself wandering around our rented condo, scanning the book shelves in search of the perfect book to read on the beach. An avid reader, I couldn’t remember the last time I actually curled up and read a book instead of writing one. Glimpsing the back covers, I came across one book in particular that caught my attention: the story of a young girl who was murdered and watches her family from heaven. In my own twisted mind, the novel seemed right up my alley. I flipped it open to the first page and read the first line:

"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

I was hooked immediately, (The first line is a publisher’s dream). In fact, I walked away continuing to read, and spent the next two days so engrossed in the novel, I lost precious vacation time. While the kids and my husband played in the sand and water, I holed up under the umbrella with my big floppy hat on and my nose stuck in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. In fact, even when I wasn’t reading it in the evening, the storyline continued to linger in the back of my mind. Yes, it’s one of those books that will stay with you for weeks after you’ve read the last page. If an author can accomplish this, it's the sign of a true literary genius. 

In my normal behind-the-eight-ball life, I'd never heard of The Lovely Bones and had no clue what a huge success it was. Now I understand why. Writing a dark storyline like the murder of a teenage girl, Sebold uses a matter-of-fact voice. Even when Susie (actress Saoirse Ronan, pictured right) describes her detailed, disturbing, and gruesome rape and murder, the reader gets through it easily. Why? Because Susie tells it simply; she is, after all, dead. There's a lack of emotion and grief, since she's had no choice but to come to terms with her fate. 

However, the reader (at least I did) feels a continuous sense of sadness as we follow Susie through her “personal heaven,” a heaven she describes as less than pleasurable. We follow her as she watches her family fall apart after the news of her death, as they grow up, and as she eventually watches the man responsible for her murder, George Harvey, who got away with it, spoiler alert! die by an icicle to the head. Susie’s own redemption.

In a time when society is plagued by true stories of murdered children shown on TVs, in newspapers, and in books, Sebold flips the coin to the child’s point of view.

Her storyline is absolutely brilliant.

Yes, it's fiction, but it deals with a horrific crime that we are all too used to hearing about. I was shocked when I Googled the book to find it was currently being made into a major motion picture with bigwig director Peter Jackson at the helm. I’ve read many books that have been made into movies, and many of them I’ve wrinkled my nose at — the book and movie both. With other books I’ve enjoyed, I found myself shaking my head that no one picked it up to make it into a movie. This time, I found myself cheering at the prospect: Finally, someone appreciates a true literary creation!

The Lovely Bones didn’t start off as a smash. In fact, it took some time to get off the ground -- until Anna Quindlen, a Book of the Month Club judge, endorsed the book on NBC's Today Show. In the weeks that followed, it became a bestseller. I love this story; I’m all for the underdog author and, frankly, it gives me hope. No one deserved this success more than Alice Sebold.

Since the announcement of the movie, the book has attracted a new, teenage audience. I was shocked when my 13-year old daughter told me everyone at school was reading it; she wanted to read the book and see the movie. I had some reservations, only because if I'd read this book when I was 13, I'd probably have had nightmares for a month. Parents, I leave it up to you to decide if it's appropriate for your teen. In my case, I finally relented and told her she could see the movie -- but only if she read the book first.

I believe that pertains to everyone, actually. The movie looks amazing, but you’ll never really get the true emotions, sadness, grief and acceptance from the movie that you get from the book. I believe reading the book first will make the movie that much better.

“The Lovely Bones” is now in theaters and the book, of course, is on bookshelves and on line everywhere. Read it first!

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