Ben Coulter Takes Readers Into London Drug Scene...

The four men came bowling down the middle of the road towards them, Tommy in front, the biggest and meanest, Frosty behind him, weighing in at around 16 stone of muscle himself, and Mickey and Freddy bringing up the rear.

 “Get in the car, Billy!” Charlie shouted as he saw Mickey pull out a long, shiny blade from inside his jacket; his already drug-battered face distorted further with venomous hate.

 “Fuck that!” replied Billy defiantly through gritted teeth. “Not here, Billy, not now. Just get in the fucking car, mate!” Charlie commanded, exerting his full authority. Billy backed down and opened his door as Charlie did the same, the four angry gangsters almost upon them. Billy revved the engine into life, still fuming with anger. 

The Dunns and their new accomplice stopped just short of the car, laughing and jeering at the retreat. Billy hammered the car into first and wheel-spun off, but not before Freddy Dunn had time to pick up rather large piece of broken concrete curb and launch it at Billy’s rear door, causing a huge crashing sound. “Fucking Aleister cunts!” Billy screamed with fury, punching the dashboard, his face exploding with a red rage as they sped out of the estate. He wasn’t designed for retreating. “We should of fucking done ‘em, Charlie, then and there. We let ‘em beat us!” 

“What the two of us, against a couple of steroid mountains, one who we know has a gun, and two nutty little cunts, one who clearly had a massive fuck-off knife on him?” Charlie shouted back, unimpressed by Billy’s reckless bravado. 

“Fuck their guns and their knives; I’ll stick them all up their fucking shit-fuck arses!” he thundered back, still assaulting his own dashboard with all his might. 

“Listen, Billy. They’ll get it all right, but not before we’re fucking ready, and not when we’re outnumbered. But they will get it, mark my words.” Charlie attempted to reassure the livid Billy, although he himself was not convinced. Taking on the Dunns was not part of his plan, and never had been. For him it was all about the money, the turf war didn’t interest him, just as it hadn’t at Tottenham when Leon had got him into a few scrapes with other football firms. He didn’t see the point of it all. He understood the use of violence if he needed to protect his money and his business, but he didn’t see the Dunns as a threat. Their drugs were worse, they didn’t steal his customers, they didn’t owe him money; he just needed to keep them at bay, which was the whole reason for getting the gun from Leon in the first place. He wanted no part of unnecessary violence; it didn’t sit well with his admittedly black morality.

Poisoned Saints:

 The Street is Always Watching

By Ben Coulter

For those like myself who have never been tempted to participate in taking drugs, it is hard to imagine, and accept, how many of our young take that chance to get "high." Coulter's story is set in Stambro, about 20 miles from London--but it could have been set anywhere, including the United States. The accent for the characters may be a little different, but that's about the only difference...

His phone unexpectedly lit up with a text message,
launching him to another reality all together:
one that included other people,
and not just him and his shattered ego.
 Alice.
He quickly snapped out of his coke-fuelled angst,
 as her dazzling hazel eyes smashed
 their way into his grey, freezing heart,
he opened the message.
 ‘Hey Charlie, hope we’re still on 4 2night?..
Quite excited ;)’

Coulter does not spare readers from the reality of it all, so if you are not willing to openly enter that world, please don't buy this book and then give it a low rating. This writer deserves to be recognized for creating a revealing piece into the addiction, the subsequent emotional and physical changes of drugs, the loss of control, and, worse, the subsequent violent acts into which this life will lead... In fact, his short bio notes "using the regretful foundation of experience," is how he was able to write this story so effectively! Thank God he got out when he did!

Charlie wasn't so fortunate...

“Yeah, whatever Harry.
So where are you?”
Charlie replied sarcastically,
knowing all too well Harry was
 in fact a major league cokehead.
A dealer himself, he worked under
Charlie, and because of this,
had a spiralling debt which had been
 raging out of control. 

He had been a star athlete until his knee went out... Finding out work brought little money, he turned to what everybody was using and he started selling. His supplier, Leon, was from London and brought "good stuff" so that he soon became noticed in his small town and a rival began with those who also were selling.

Charlie had a vision to get enough money and then leave. Especially when he met Alice and fell hard... But then one of his boys found out the truth--she was a half-sister to one of the other gang...

That really set him off, because he was already in trouble with the law for a big one--they thought he had murdered another dealer! Yeah, he was supposed to meet him but when he got there, he was already dead. Charlie tried to save him, and then later called "999." Would the cops accept the truth?

“I’ll see you tomorrow though, yeah? Come back round at night?”

 “I wouldn’t miss it for all the,” he was about to use his line of all the coke in Columbia, but thought back to what Hayley had revealed to him. “I’m sorry for doing bag in front of you and that, Hayley.” 

“What do you mean?” she laughed sleepily.

 “Well, you must have been, you know, after Frosty doing it that…” 

She cut in, firmly, before he could continue. “Charlie, when I said I never wanna talk about it again, I meant it! I knew this would happen if I told you,”

~~~

But it all turned bad, when Charlie learned what really had happened to Alice...

Alice had introduced Charlie into Buddhism which she had learned about many years ago and he found himself remembering a lot of what she had said, making decisions, based on his new way of thinking.  But as I closed the book, I found an old phrase from my own religion coming to mind...you know, the one about those that live by the sword, dying by the sword... 

The phrase is found in the Christian Book of Revelation, 13:10: "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints." (Rev.13:10 KJV) Commonly, the expression is understood to mean, "You can expect to become a victim of whatever means you use to get what you want."^[1] A proverb in the Gospel of Matthew, verse 26:52, describes a disciple (identified in the Gospel of John as Simon Peter) drawing a sword to defend against the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, but is rebuked by Jesus, who tells him to sheath the weapon: Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword (Matthew 26:52, King James Version) 

I don't have the experience to know whether this writer over-dramatized the story, nor do I care because I found it believable, given what, news, TV, etc., shares... I think the writer wanted to share what he'd personally learned through experience and pinpoint the potential results. I believe he succeeded...

This is not a great ending type of story. Many have had the personal experience of what can happened to those who do drugs... The message is clear in Ben Coulter's book--Get out, while you still can! The key thing for me was that this boy was an athlete in school, proud of his accomplishments and looking toward a career. Why do we allow academic achievement to fall below that of athletic stardom? Obviously, the money... How I wish Charlie had had similar success in his academic life and gone on to a successful career, far away from using and dealing.

Many should consider this a must-read! You???

GABixlerReviews

About this author

Ben Coulter was born in 1980 and raised in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, England.

He has been writing 'as long as he can remember' in one form or another. The aim with his debut novel Poisoned Saints, was to portray to the reader an authentic criminal lifestyle through the art of fiction, whilst using the regretful foundation of experience.

Poisoned Saints was released at the end of last year to a pleasing on-line response. He is currently working on the follow up books to Poisoned Saints 'Keep on Running' and 'When The Saint Comes Marching Home' which will both be released in 2013.