June Hampson

Trust Nobody by June Hamson delves into the lives of the wives, girlfriends and prostitutes of the hard men, the street criminals, and scum of the underworld. Set in Portsmouth in the early 1960’s, the story revolves around Daisy Lane whose husband Kenny is serving two years in prison. She is trying to make ends meet by running a back street café, although she is not totally alone. Her brother-in-law, the vicious yet charming Eddy is there, and she has her live in friends, aging prostitute Vera and sixteen year old Suze, who ran away from her rapist step-father and now helps Daisy in the cafe.

While visiting her husband at the prison, she meets Moira, the attractive wife of a high end London criminal, an assistant to the Kray Twins, and they become friends. Moira, a drug addict, is a very needy person and constantly wants Daisy to come up to London and spend time with her. Being this close to the glamorous yet dangerous life she is shown in London has opened doors for Daisy, but at what price?

This book is the first in a trilogy that tells of Daisy’s struggles to escape her life of poverty, crime and violence. The author, June Hamson, knows of what she writes as she was born and raised in Gosport, a very poor area of Portsmouth, and her story of Daisy’s struggle to steer her own destiny is very much her own which accounts for the believability of the story. I personally enjoyed this gritty tale of the 1960’s and plan on continuing on with the trilogy.… (mais)