Author: RJ Bailey
ISBN No: 9781-4711-5716-5
Review date: 16/03/2026
No of pages: 438
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publisher URL:
http://www.simonandschuster.co.uk
Year of publication: 08/12/2016
Brief:
Safe From Harm, by RJ Bailey, published 2017 by Scott & Schuster. Paperback, 438 pages, ISBN 9781-4711-5716-5, ยฃ7.99. Visit www.simonandschuster.co.uk
price
£7.99
A work of fiction makes a change, and highly enjoyable one, writes Mark Rowe.
The thinking behind Safe From Harm is so good, other publishers and budding authors may come to ask why they didnโt think of it. You have the close protection officer, the bodyguard, as the entry into whatever VIP world you choose as your subject. Make the hero a heroine – a female CPO, which while still far from the norm, is perfectly believable – and as Safe From Harm points out, a woman CPO in some situations has advantages over a man, such as being able to relate better to women and girls.
Bloody after Hampstead
As Safe From Harm is a thriller, it would be wrong to give away the details of the story. The heroine, Samantha Wylde, is early on bereaved. She takes a bodyguarding job for the wealthy Pakistani family the Sharifs, particularly looking after Nuzha, the daughter: โShe turned out to be the kind of 12-year-old you only read about – polite, diligent, hard-working, maybe a little too serious.โ A typical and even routine CP job of driving in large and expensive cars, liaising with the โresidential security adviserโ, picking children up from school in Hampstead Garden Suburb. And when Sam gets home, she has to be as quick in her thinking as a mother – when her daughter asks for permission to go to a sleep-over, is it as innocent as it sounds? Life turns bloody. Samantha has to be a good CPO and protect the principal, and their family – but what about her own family? The style (first-person) and content throughout are impeccable. The author plainly knows everything from Gander airport in Canada, to recent laughably misnamed โpeace-keepingโ missions such as Bosnia, to why the CPO asks for a driver airbag to be disabled: โIf you get rammed by hostiles, a face full of giant gas envelope tends to impair your response, not to mention blocking your vision. Everyone else in the vehicle can get a free bouncy castle, but you, the driver, want to be able to see and steer out of trouble.โ
Who is it?
While it shouldnโt be a distraction from the enjoyable read, who is the author? Is the initials, as with JK Rowling, an attempt to hide the gender of the author? But which gender? Is it a writer whoโs done plenty of research, or someone whoโs done the job of close protection, and who has taken to writing? With an Army background? โIโd seen macho save-the-little-lady behaviour like that on the battlefield,โ the heroine says near the end. โIt never ended well.โ The author is at home around the reality of close protection, the small world known as โThe Circuitโ, and the lingo (POI, for example; โperson of interestโ). While the work demands that you do a โcasual 360 of the areaโ when a pregnant woman asks you a question, forget about ramming and driving your way out of trouble; you strive to avoid it in the first place. The book is masterly on the nuts and bolts, such as cars – important for the CPO to do their job, and maybe stay alive if attacked – and with self-defence fighting, such as Krav Maga, as with the inner life of the narrator, and the other characters; the hidden deceit and evil of people.
The book closes with Wylde giving up the Sharif job and smoking in her car, waiting to ask someone some questions. But she doesnโt expect all the answers. โOnly some. Real life is too confused, too untidy to deliver me neat, bow-tied solutions …โ Which leads the book neatly into the sequel, already on the stocks for 2018, when Sam Wylde (with SIA licence, naturally) accompanies a client on โan extended business trip abroadโ. By land only, as the client has a fear of flying (why do they always have to be like that?!). The publishers plainly and justifiably have high hopes of this character becoming a successful series of books, and I can well see readers becoming (and as importantly, staying) loyal.
Private security people may enjoy the book for more than the sheer pleasure (with such opening chapter lines as โhe looked good for a man I thought was deadโ); they may pick up some ideas, such as using an RAC van as cover if you want to do some investigation work. But the author does not tell you how to get such a van!
And the urgent cover does the book justice too.
Safe From Harm, by RJ Bailey, published 2017 by Scott & Schuster. Paperback, 438 pages, ISBN 9781-4711-5716-5, ยฃ7.99. Visit www.simonandschuster.co.uk.
