What’s the old line? “Truth is stranger than fiction.”
It’s the case with my Curt Savage Mysteries. I’ve just finished SAVAGE FALL the second in the series. Even though I pretty much have tunnel vision when working on a manuscript, I couldn’t avoid the headlines of a sex ring operating under the all-too-willing hand of a billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
Allegedly, this operation serviced the rich, powerful and titled. A constitutional lawyer, an ex-president and Prince Andrew have all named as having participated in this network. And one of the girls claiming to have been a sex slave and servicing anyone Epstein asked is reporting ready to write her story. Sex slave? In this day and age? Yes. It is going on.
If people think that making prostitution legal will help, they’re naïve or misinformed. In pandering to the basest desires, there’s always a call to recruit someone newer, younger and more innocent to become “the flavor of the week.” And it’s not difficult to weaken someone’s spirit. People do it in business all the time, so why not where the arena of sex is concerned? You just find someone young, perhaps with a troubled past, bring them into your sphere of influence and go to work on pressuring them. It’s what Jane Doe 3 states, and what her boyfriend at the time confirms. I’ll quote a bit from the story posted by the Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2898522/Andrew-didn-t-act-royally-Ex-lover-Duke-s-sex-slave-claims-never-said-good-prince-felt-pressure-sleep-Epstein.html
“In an interview with The Sun, Mr Figueroa claimed Miss Roberts called him from a mansion suggesting that Epstein was pressuring her into having sex with Andrew.
He said: ‘He (Epstein) was being really pushy. She asked “How do you feel about it?” And I was like “Well obviously you know how I feel about it”.’
The mind boggles from reconciling the facts. After all, billionaires can ostensibly buy anything they want and they choose to engage in this sort of despicable activity? With no regard for anyone or anything other than their own desires? Funny, I’ve always dreamed of acquiring a large amount of money so that I could start an animal shelter and care for unwanted animals, or fund a soup kitchen so food could be shared with the underprivileged, sick or homeless. Or how about creating a battered women’s shelter or devising an afterschool program so children could learn a skill or play and be kept from getting into trouble? These are the types of projects that interest me and these are the ones I think of when I imagine lavishly spending money (that I’ve yet to earn), but evidently, these do not match the goals of those who actually possess the means to accomplish these sorts of charitable deeds.
Instead, it’s, “Hey, let’s round up some underage teenage girls so we can start a sex ring!” I would have liked to have been there when that subject opened up. Was it around the dinner table? Over smoking a stogie in a gentleman’s club? Or in front of the local high school?
And if this goes on, you know there is something far deeper, far more disturbing at work and waiting to be discovered. This heart of the conspiracy is where the Curt Savage Mysteries delves, and since it is fiction, I can explore all the sordid fantasies that being rich can buy.
Please check out SAVAGE SUMMER. It’s the first book in the series and sets up the explosive action of where this story is set to go. Kapow!
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Author Ruth Bainbridge 