Nasty Business (The Business - Martina Cole)

Member Name: brittle1906

Product:	The Business - Martina Cole
Date:	11/02/09 (158 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hard hitting modern novel

Disadvantages: Language and content may offend some

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 books have the ability to shock, fascinate, touch and repulse me as the story unfolds!

**The Plot**

Covering period from 1978 to the present day, The Business follows the life of Jordana Dooley, the child of Imelda Dooley, a psychotic drug addict. Imelda has no compunction about using others to achieve her desires including setting up her own father and her daughter's father which results in their deaths. Later in the story, Imelda shoots her lover, the father of her second child, Kenny-Boy, in front of three year old Jordana and by dint of devious means, manages to blame the little girl for the murder. Nothing matters to Imelda apart from her own wants and needs and she uses her children, her mother and everyone she comes into contact with, mercilessly, to obtain them. I will not divulge more of the story in this review for fear of spoiling the book for other readers!
As with all Ms Cole's books, strong language is prevalent throughout, the characters are well drawn and believable, but at times a tad too violent for some readers tastes.
The novel has many twists and turns, which would enthral a reader new to Martina Cole's work, but I have to say that having read all her books, I noticed echoes of previous novels popping up fairly regularly! The Business is not as gruesomely violent as some of the authors previous novels, but the underlying, unspoken violence is just as effective as graphically described brutality, in some ways more so, as the reader's own imagination is fired as events unfold.
The main characters are:-

Imelda Dooley, a drug addict, prostitute and mother of two children.
Jordana Dooley, Imelda's daughter.

Kenneth Dooley, Imelda's son, known as Kenny-Boy
Mary Dooley, Imelda's mother, a devout Irish Catholic woman who tries to provide some semblance of normality for her grandchildren.

**The Author**
Martina Cole was born in 1958, she was brought up in Essex. Her first novel, DANGEROUS LADY, was an instant best-seller and became a highly successful TV drama series. Since then Martina Cole has written fourteen more best selling novels set in the criminal underworld of London. Ms Cole is no stranger to hardship and has taken many knocks in life herself. Her parents both died when she was young and by 18 years of age she was living alone in a Tilbury council flat with her baby son. She began writing as a way of escaping her own problems. She has in her own words 'always been a grafter' and has built a comfortable life on the strength of her books. She has divorced twice and has a son, a daughter and a grandchild. Martina Cole teaches creative writing to inmates at Wandsworth and Belmarsh prisons and a patron of Chelmsford Women's Aid, which she says is her way of putting something back into society.
For further information about the author and her books, visit Headline and Martina's own website
www.headline.co.uk
www.martinacole.co.uk

**Other novels by Martina Cole**

Dangerous Lady (1992)
The Ladykiller (1993)
Goodnight Lady (1994)
The Jump (1995)
The Runaway (1997)
Two Women (1999)
Broken (2000)
Faceless (2001)
Maura's Game (2002)
The Know (2003)
The Graft (2004)
The Take (2005)
Close (2006)
Faces (2007)
The Business (2008)

**The book details**

Published in 2008 by Headline Press. Jacket price £18.99.
Available from www.amazon.co.uk for £4 (used).
506 pages
ISBN 975-0-7553-2865-9

**My thoughts and conclusion**

The Business is a gutsy, gritty tale of a childhood spent against a backdrop of drugs, violence, prostitution and neglect. It is uncomfortable reading at times, but an un-put-down-able novel. I did not consider it in quite the same league as some of the author's earlier works, but would recommend it nevertheless to a reader looking for thought provoking and modern crime fiction.
Thank you for reading.
©brittle1906 February 2009

Also published on ciao.co.uk under same name

Summary: a good read from a popular author