AuthorsDen.com   Join | Login    
Where Authors and Readers come together!

SIGNED BOOKS    AUTHORS    BOOKS    SAMPLE CHAPTERS    AUDIOBOOKS    eBOOKS    STORIES    ARTICLES    POETRY    BLOGS    NEWS    VIDEOS    SUCCESS    TESTIMONIALS

Featured Authors:  Lisa DAnnolfo Levey, i Aberjhani, iEva Pasco, iLeanne Bright Cloudman, iMichael Charles Messineo, iJeff Mason, iBob Brink, iGlenda Bixler, iTrennis Killian, iMichael Gorton, i

  Home > Historical Fiction > Books Popular: Books, Stories, Articles, Poetry      Authors: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z     

David L James

 Follow Me  

· Contact Me
· Books
· Articles
· Poetry
· News
· Stories
· 15 Titles
· Add to My Library
· Share with Friends!
·
Member Since: Jan, 2009

David L James, click here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.


Punching Judy
by David L James   
Books by David L James
· Charles Dickens and the Night Visitors
· The Confessions of Becky Sharp
· Boy Among Men    >> View all

See larger image

Amazon
www. trafford.com/07-0405

Category:  Historical Fiction
Publisher: trafford

ISBN-10:  1425120008

Type: Fiction

Pages: 315

Copyright: 
October, 2007
ISBN-13: 9781425120009


This story of the relationship between an ageing boxing coach and a female juvenile delinquent takes place in southeast London in the 1950s, when butch girls needed to punch their weight or go under.

Judy Smith, on release from a detention centre, is advised by her probation officer to contact Apeman Harry O'Riordan her former boxing coach. Ape, needing the money and recognising Judy's ring potential, agrees to give her one last chance.

That Judy is an odd lot Ape accepts, but when he finds that she has stolen not only goods but also the woman he loves, he walks away in disgust. A crack on the skull, however, received in his night job as a bouncer, leaves Ape floundering: no work, no woman and no money. Can he rescue himself from depression and the booze? Or Judy, his last hope, from the seedy underbelly of illegal boxing and the life of crime to which she is inevitably drawn?



Excerpt

Chapter One:

'Feet on the floor, fat slob, or my stick'll fly!'

Sergeant Kyte leans down and puts her lips close to the ear of the inmate, bellowing, 'Are you hearing me,Smith? DO YOU HEAR ME, SLOB?'

No response from Judy, so the officer lifts a corner of the blanket and flicks it off with one jerk of the wrist. She sniffs, poking her baton into a crevice between the inmate's legs. Which is one poke too many for Jude 'Slugger'Smith, who is on her feet in a flash, and laying into the officer with head, knee and knuckle.

Suddenly the room is in turbulence, with cheers, beds askew and folded blankets toppling as the contestants grapple on the floor. Two orderlies attemp to prise Judy's fingers from the officer's throat, but the fearsome gurgling continues. Eventually the girl rises to her knees, picks up a studded boot and attempts to hammer the head of Serjeant Kyte to a pulp. A torn beret lies on the floor by a spot of blood.


The list of charges read out to the girl before her confinement to The White House seemed endless. As did the reports delivered by Senior officer myra Channing, the matron and guardian of Scott House. Capital punishment at Greenways having been temporarily suspended, Prisoner Judith Mary Smith, also known as the Slugger, Seb Smith or The Butcher, was awarded ten days in solitary confinement, together with restricted rations, loss of privileges and suspension of all visitation rights. Not that Judy had ever had any privileges or visitors since her three month sentence had been handed down. People were not stupid. She was trash and she'd ended up where she belonged - in the waste bin. You don't wash trash; you bury it and try to forget it.


Want to review or comment on this book?


Need a FREE Reader Membership?

Popular Historical Fiction Books
  1. Marooned
  2. The Eternal Soldier
  3. Shanghai Escapist
  4. Master Wu's Bride
  5. Bring Them In! : College, Churches, Cu
  6. Living on Sisu: The 1913 Union Copper
  7. Mujahidin
  8. Escape to Freedom
  9. Embers In Ashes; A Civil War Love Stor
  10. A Relucatant Spy
  11. Dear Margaret,
  12. The Six Bells of Madame Lin (The Witch
  13. Sweet Revenge
  14. STC
  15. The House of Green Waters
  16. Death Will Follow: Book One of the Imp
  17. Catherine's Ring
  18. A Girl Named Mary
  19. Swan Coud - Southen Swallow Book III
  20. The Prisoner's Dilemma
  21. Little Vin at Dreamland
  22. If I Perish
  23. Galveston, 1900 Indignities, The Arriv
  24. Galveston, 1900 Indignities, The Affir
  25. Restitution

Free Book Review Program
Select a book to read and review today!

The Six Bells of Madame Lin (The Witch of Marigold Hall Trilogy Book 1 by Edward Patterson

The Six Bells of Madame Lin is the first book in The Witch of Marigold Hall Trilogy, a fictionalized account of the struggles of Lin Mang, a blind woman who manages to navigate the world during the Mongol conquest of China in the 13th Century. Withou  
Member BookAds

Escape to Freedom by Frances Altman

NEW! Young strong willed girl comes to America as a bond servant. When her bond is resold, she seeks to escape to the west.  
Member BookAds

Escape to Freedom by Frances Altman

NEW! Young strong willed girl comes to America as a bond servant. When her bond is resold, she seeks to escape to the west.  
Member BookAds