The Business - Martina Cole

After first discovering Martina Cole books I went to read all of her novels and really enjoyed them up until Faces which was published christmas 2007. Therefore when The Business was published christams 2008 I was unsure whether to rush out and buy it in hardback. Against my better judgement I did go out and buy it, it should have been £17.99 but I got it on special offer at Tesco for £10. After reading it I wish I had waited for it to come out in paperback. I cannot pinpoint exactly why I did not like it but it just did not seem as good as her earlier novels. It was very descriptive but yet without much actually happening. Gone are the twists and ...  Read the complete review

Review of The Business, a hardback novel by Martina Cole The Business is Martina Cole's latest offering in a long line of best selling novels set against a backdrop of London's criminal underworld. For those unfamiliar with Ms Cole's books, she writes of subjects unsavoury, seedy and at times, uncomfortable. Nothing is taboo to Ms Cole and The Business covers violence, murder, prostitution, drug addiction, child abuse and neglect . Her writing style is gritty and she produces novels that are hauntingly readable. Readers are under no illusions about her characters and their lifestyles, a peep into a world very different from most people's reality, Ms Cole's ...  Read the complete review

Martina Cole - The Business..... **The Book** Martina Cole's latest novel entitled "The Business" is yet another book filled with the gritty, hard hitting seediness that is the London underworld. We go back in time to the late 70's and meet the Dooley family. Gerald Dooley SNR, head of the house, Mary Dooley the mother of three children, two sons and a daughter, Imelda. Imelda is the main charter throughout the book as we follow her life, which is bad from start to finish. Imelda is trouble with a capital "T" and this is something that her family are soon to realise. Her sexually loose behaviour soon ...  Read the complete review

This is the first Martina Cole book I have ever read, and I am impressed. The book was dark and dangerous and although i knew I should not enjoy it, I really did. The themes and characters of the story had me hooked and once I started reading the book I could not put it down. The Business is about the Dooley family. It startes off with Gerry a hard debt collecter, his family live in East London in the 70's and London is full of Crime. His wife Mary brings up teh children, 2 boys who are a bit thick, they work for their father, and could do nothing else, and Imelda their stunning, deceptive daughter. She winds up getting pregnant and tells a lie which literally ...  Read the complete review

After discovering Martina Cole's books through a friends recommendation, I have now read the majority of her work, however, have seen in recent years that the storylines have all remained very similar. I decided to have a break from Ms Cole for a while and after watching the dramatisation of The Take, thought that I would give "The Business" a read. The storyline is very similar to other Martina Cole's works - we have a family whose fate is determined by an event that is to have repercussions for many years. We follow the story of Mary Dooley, her fight to bring up her children following the death of their father and her relationship with her ...  Read the complete review