Dirty Work

Publishers Weekly

Two teenage girls from vastly different backgrounds alternately narrate this complex, gritty story about an international kidnapping and prostitution ring. Oksana, poor, cold and hungry, is easy prey at 13 when a man comes to her Russian village, promising a good job in London; raped and shamed, she tells her story from a vantage point of two years, in pained flashbacks. A chance meeting on the ferry from France to England acquaints her with Hope, a wealthy 15-year-old, who is returning from a vacation. As Hope and her dad disembark, she discovers Oksana hiding in their van, pleading for help; Hope knows her materialistic parents well enough not to alert them to Oksana's presence. But Hope will soon regret her decision: Natasha's pimp captures both girls, and Hope's nightmare begins. Suggestive rather than graphic, this story is heavy with grim details. The satisfying conclusion, with the protagonists reaching safety, doesn't dispel the realistically depressing atmosphere the British author has labored to build. Ages 12-up. (Jan.)

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VOYA

Oksana and Hope come from different worlds, but they are caught up together in a grim experience. Oksana is a poor teen from Russia whose family sinks further into poverty after the death of her mother. As her family situation becomes more desperate, she is tricked into leaving for what she thinks is a waitressing job in London. Instead she finds herself turning tricks in seedy European locales. The daughter of a wealthy businessman, Hope meets Oksana on the ferry when returning from her summer holiday as Oksana is being delivered to a new owner. Oksana stows away in Hope's van, but eventually both girls are snatched by the thug who is escorting Oksana. Hope continually looks for ways to escape, while Oksana vacillates between feeling resigned to her dismal life and frantically wishing to escape. The story is told in alternating voices, but only Oksana's voice stirs compassion. Hope is a spoiled teen who bemoans having to spend her summer in the south of France when she would rather be home with her girlfriends. Although Hope's voice does little to elicit sympathy from readers, Oksana's tale of her gritty existence in Russia and the bleak outlook for her future is compelling. This story has its gripping moments, but on the whole, the issue of human trafficking is told more effectively in Patricia McCormick's Sold (Hyperion/DBG, 2006/VOYA December 2006). Reviewer: Debbie Clifford

School Library Journal

Gr 7-10- A government survey estimated in 2003 that 4000 women had been trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation; that number may well be larger today. Bell puts a human face on such statistics in this poignant story of two unhappy 14-year-olds who end up in a Turkish-run brothel above a London fish-and-chips shop. Looking for a better life and believing the flashy young man who promised her work, Oksana left her impoverished village in rural Russia, only to become the slave of the series of men who took over her care. In an escape attempt she takes refuge in the van belonging to a wealthy English businessman whose daughter, Hope, conceals her near their farm home and promises to take her to London. Instead, the two are captured together and delivered to the brothel owners who had ordered two European girls. Oksan's story is revealed slowly, in flashbacks that show how strongly she has come to believe that her condition is what she deserves. Only Oksana is raped (without explicit description) and sent off to "work." Perhaps the English girl is being saved for the Internet, or, more likely, for ransom. Told in alternating first-person narratives, this harrowing account is an appropriate companion to Patricia McCormick's Sold (Hyperion, 2006).-Kathleen Isaacs, Towson University, MD

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Kirkus Reviews

The dirty work suggested in the title might be the sex acts abductors forced on teen girls, or perhaps the phrase alludes to the nasty business of prying the girls from their families. Hope Tasker, who is British, and Oksana Droski, who grew up in Russia, both are held captive by men eager for cash. They will be sold as sex slaves. Oksana mistakenly enters the sleazy business desperate to escape hunger and poverty. Her situation is contrasted by Hope, a kidnapped child of privilege who ruefully remembers friends gleefully allowing their thongs to peek out from low-cut jeans. Hope's captors now demand a much more alluring sexiness than flirty glimpses of underwear. Much of the story's background focuses on Oksana and the circumstances leading her to believe she's hired for legitimate work. The lengthy descriptions of her early struggles become a letdown from the crackling violence that Bell promisingly offers in the first third of the story. Although this work lacks the quality of Patricia McCormick's Sold (2006), it is a logical transition for teen fiction dealing with human trafficking. (Fiction. YA)