Lad Lit Book Reviews: Banged Up Abroad: Hellhole by James Miles & Paul Loseby

I've learnt a thing or two since reading the odd book about how you might want to try and avoid the perils and pitfalls of finding yourself behind bars in a foreign nick. For example, that dodgy bloke you met in the pub who offers you easy money for going on a simple little trip is dodgy for a very good reason. Another little tidbit is smuggling drugs out of an Asian or South American country is generally a pretty piss-poor decision, especially when all you get is a weeks holiday at a 5-star hotel and about five grand for your troubles. Stick with your 3-star hotel with Thomas Cook, paid with from your own hard earned money; it's less hassle, trust me. 

Oh, and if you've got nothing but clouds between your ears and you opt to take the dodgy bloke up on his offer of luxury in return of doing a little 'favour' for him, run a million miles if he says the job involves traveling to Venezuela!

Franks Kane's In The Shadow Of Papillon sent a shiver down my spine when I read it, and James Miles and Paul Loseby's account of their Fight To Survive South America's Deadliest Prison comes a very close second!

I remember seeing these two lads on the TV show Banged Up Abroad and it was one of my favourite episodes. Here you had two normal guys who naively agreed to smuggle cocaine back into the UK after growing 'bored' of their lives in Leicester, and my God they paid the price for that boredom!

I've said it before in my reviews of these types of books and I'll say it again - I don't applaud anyone for attempting to smuggle or deal in drugs, but I do applaud the testicular fortitude these people put on display when faced with sadistic prison guards, vicious gangs armed to the teeth with knives, guns, and grenades, and not to mention the filth, insects, and rat infested conditions they have to live in. Miles and Loseby had to deal with some of the worst conditions and scenarios I've read about.

My only criticism - and it is a minor criticism - is that at times I did find myself thinking that Uri Geller would have been proud of the levels of truth 'bending' going on in here! Some of the stories seem a little far fetched. James Miles takes control as the lead vocal in this book, and he clearly enjoys playing the tough guy, which I appreciate you have to do in a situation as extreme as this. But there is a bit too much bravado for me at times; too much of Miles making sure he lets the reader know how much of a 'geezer' he is. You're in a awful, horrible, vile situation - we get it. We know how tough you have to be, you don't need to keep reminding the reader!

Then again, maybe I'm being too harsh, and perhaps after you have been through what these two guys went through you're entitled to some creative freedom and dare I say it, boasting. After all is said and done, the sad reality of this book is that it's a very tragic story of a lost youth. It never ceases to amaze me just how shocking some of these experiences can be; sometimes words simply don't do them justice. 

The bond between these two kids - because that's what they were at 19 when this happened - is testament to the inhumane conditions and regime they fought against to live to tell the tale. I'm sure people would be quick to label and stereotype Miles and Loseby as two typical council estate wannabe gangsters; but I think that upbringing probably saved their lives. Christ knows you need to show a bit of streetwise savvy and aggression to survive a place like Yare (the prison in which they were housed).

I found myself engrossed within the pages of this story, and I came to quite like the two boys, and I was willing them to make it through this terrible journey. Everyone makes mistakes, and these two made the Godzilla of all mistakes. But they fought with every ounce of strength and soul left in their bodies, and that comes through in their words.

Lad Lit Book Reviews: The Damage Done by Warren Fellows

The opening few sentences of this book grab hold of you in a vice like grip and attempts to prepare the reader for what is to come. 'Think about the most wretched day of your life' the author asks the reader to contemplate, 'and then imagine 4,000 of those days together in one chunk.'

Australian drug-smuggler Warren Fellows doesn't pull any punches, nor does he ask for your sympathy. But he wants his story to be told, because reading what this man went through - no matter what his crime - leaps at you off the pages like a Thai prison warden bashing you across the head with a bamboo stick.

It's powerful stuff; frightening and unthinkable to imagine that right now - somewhere in the world at this very minute - another human being is suffering the way Fellows suffered for 12 years.

After operating as a cocaine smuggler, an introduction to infamous gangster Neddy Smith leads to Fellows pairing up with Smiths brother-in-law Paul Hayward and sending them to Thailand to smuggle heroin into Australia. 

What Fellows and Hayward didn't realise is that they were already under surveillance before they even left the country, and their world was about to fall apart. Following their arrest and conviction in 1978, the pair are shipped around Thailand's most notorious prisons. Here they suffer such inhumane conditions that will go on to have long lasting effects.

Despite reaching into an intense darkness to tell his tale, Fellows still manages to maintain an engaged tone throughout, and at times can be very amusing. The story about how much inmates have to pay to have sex with a good looking pig (yes, you read that correctly) is delivered with such dry sarcasm that you can't help but smile at the absurdity of the horrible situation he is in.

I've read a few books in this genre and this one is right up there with my favourite In the Shadow of Papillon. Perhaps not the sort of book you want to read on a flight to Bangkok, but then again it will certainly make you think twice about what you get up to at those Full Moon parties!

Lad Lit Book Reviews: In The Shadow of Papillon by Frank Kane

Survival is an eight-letter word that after reading this book, you’ll never feel able to justify using again in a sentence to describe an experience you have gone through. Because after you have read what this man went through, survival was shown to be a whole new meaning to me!

To say I was blown-away after reading this book would not do this unbelievable and frightening story justice. Putting to one side your views on the evils of drugs and those who help bring it into our country, no one should have to experience the tale that Frank Kane somehow lived to tell.

Most men would like to think they could puff out their chests and deal with any situation they are faced with. But I’m not too sure I could deal with five minutes of the horror that is described in this book. Imagine arriving in a strange land and immediately being faced with a group of knife wielding men who are threatening to kill you and your only way to protect yourself is to find your own knife and fight back. We're not talking about a disagreement in the office here! And that is what Frank had to deal with every day while locked up.

Frank doesn’t really go into too much detail of how he lost his business and ended up desperate enough to agree to smuggle cocaine out of Venezuela with his girlfriend, Sam, and neither does he ask for the readers sympathy. But what he does go into detail about is the sheer hell in which he lived for seven years in one of the most violent and brutal penal systems in the world.

The book takes its name and inspiration from the moment Frank arrives at El Dorado prison, better known for being the one-time home of Henri Charrière, or Papillon. From the moment he steps through those prison gates, Frank enters a world where even the prison guards refuse to enter, instead choosing to police the prison from the outside on the perimeter.

What this means is that Frank is housed in an overcrowded population of murderers, rapists, and gang members armed to the teeth with all manner of weapons from machetes to machine guns and even hand grenades.

Some of his accounts are nothing short staggering. Frank tells of the night one of the gang leaders breaks down a wall to enter the cell where he is sleeping and viciously murders another prisoner right in front of Frank’s eyes, who is then forced to remain in the cell for the rest of the night with the corpse out of fear of reprisals should he attempt to even move the body.

This book is totally jaw-dropping from start to finish, and without a doubt the best prison book I’ve ever read. It is not going to be to everyone’s taste, but if you are a fan of the genre (or even a fan of seeing how far the human spirit can be pushed) then I can’t recommend this highly enough.

Lad Lit Book Reviews: Hell in Barbados by Terry Donaldson

It’s one thing if Terry Donaldson experienced what he considered to be Hell whilst he was stuck in a Barbados prison for three years, but that really was no reason to put the reader through the same ordeal of having to read this book. I can honestly say that having read a number of books about people being locked up in foreign prisons that this is by far the worst of the lot.

At the start of this book, Terry Donaldson explains about his early life and how he became to be a relatively successful British TV presenter in the 90s, but succumbed to the evils of drugs (and prostitutes) at which point his life spiraled out of control to the point where he agreed to smuggle drugs out of Barbados and into Britain.

The problem is I took an almost immediate dislike to Terry, and not because he was a drug addict. I’m not here to judge anyone for what they have done in their life, but I will judge them if they are whiney, miserable, and full of as much joy as an eight hour road trip with Victor Meldrew. Terry seems oblivious to the fact that he only has himself to blame, which meant by the time he got to prison I had very little sympathy for him or any of horrors he faced.

The other issue I have is that this book is called Hell in Barbados but compared to some of the other books I’ve read on this subject matter, Terry’s three-year stint was a walk in the park! Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not for one minute saying that a 36-month stretch in a Caribbean clink was a holiday camp (although it is probably is better than a caravan holiday at Butlins), but if you read the likes of In The Shadow of Papillon or The Damage Done, then you really know what hell is like!

And maybe that is the real problem for me. I’ve seen other reviewers give this book four or five star ratings, and rave about how good it is, but I can only presume that is because they haven’t read any other books in the genre. This one didn’t grip me like those other books did, and as Terry rambles on from one thing to the next playing the ‘woe-is-me’ card, all I wanted to do was reach into those pages, give him a slap, and tell him to man-up! He doesn’t even seem to grasp the fact that he is the only one to blame for the predicament he finds himself in. You are almost glad that he ends up facing a bit of hard time!

I never really worked out why Terry went from being a happily married man with a nice car and a four-bedroom house to using crack and heroin, and sleeping with as many hookers as he could get his hands on. Maybe he did explain it but it was lost on me.

I stuck with this book until the very end in hope that it would get better at some stage, but even the riot in the prison seemed tame by comparison to some of the other horrors I have read about in other books, or perhaps by that point I had simply just lost the will to live and didn’t care anymore. Sorry Terry, this one wasn't for me.