The Business

Love your family. Hate your enemies. Know the Business.

Imelda Dooley is scared. She s played hard and fast and now she s been caught. She s pregnant and now she s on her own. Her father, not a man to mess with, will see that somebody pays for this. And it s not going to be her. So Imelda Dooley tells a lie. A lie that literally causes murders.

When Mary Dooley s husband is killed in the night s events, she knows she must graft to keep the family afloat. And graft she does, becoming a name in her own right. But she still has to watch her daughter s life spiral into a vicious, hate-fuelled cycle of drugs and prostitution.

Caught up in the carnage that is Imelda s existence are Mary s adored grandchildren, Jordanna and Kenny. Pretty little Jordanna isn t yet three and she already knows far too much. All she can do is look after her baby brother and try not to draw attention to herself.

Short-listed for Galaxy British Book Awards: Books Direct Crime Thriller of the Year 2009

“Cole is brilliant at portraying the good among the bad, and vice versa, so until the very end we never quite know who to trust. This is the very stuff that makes her so compelling - Daily Mirror No one writes about East End women and their vagaries like Martina Cole - Maxim Jakubowski, Murder One'A powerful novel that pulls no punches... Cole has an ear for the vernacular of the East End, as well as an ability to portray the viciousness of life at the edge' the Guide - Guide Right from the start [Cole] has enjoyed unqualified approval for her distinctive and powerfully written fiction - The Times Intensely readable - Guardian Martina Cole explores the shady criminal underworld, a setting she is fast making her own - Sunday Express Utterly compelling - Mirror The story will grip you from the first pages - Best”

Cole is brilliant at portraying the good among the bad, and vice versa, so until the very end we never quite know who to trust. This is the very stuff that makes her so compelling - Daily Mirror

No one writes about East End women and their vagaries like Martina Cole - Maxim Jakubowski, Murder One

'A powerful novel that pulls no punches... Cole has an ear for the vernacular of the East End, as well as an ability to portray the viciousness of life at the edge' the Guide - Guide

Right from the start [Cole] has enjoyed unqualified approval for her distinctive and powerfully written fiction - The Times

Intensely readable - Guardian

Martina Cole explores the shady criminal underworld, a setting she is fast making her own - Sunday Express

Utterly compelling - Mirror

The story will grip you from the first pages - Best

Martina Cole is the acknowledged queen of crime drama with over twenty novels to her name, of which over a dozen have been No.1 bestsellers.

Several of Martina's novels have been adapted for the screen, including The Take and The Runaway which were shown on Sky 1 to remarkable reviews. In addition, Two Women and The Graft have been adapted for the stage; both were highly acclaimed when performed at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, which also staged Dangerous Lady in 2012, celebrating twenty years since Martina's debut novel was published.

Martina Cole is a phenomenon. She continues to smash sales records with each of her books, which have sold thirteen million copies. In 2011 Martina surpassed the 50 million sales mark since records began and was the first British female novelist for adult audiences to achieve this - and she has spent more weeks in the No. 1 slot on the original fiction bestseller list than any other adult novelist. Her hard-hitting, uncompromising and haunting writing is in a genre all its own - no one writes like Martina.

Love your family. Hate your enemies. Know the Business.Imelda Dooley is scared. She s played hard and fast and now she s been caught. She s pregnant and now she s on her own. Her father, not a man to mess with, will see that somebody pays for this. And it s not going to be her. So Imelda Dooley tells a lie. A lie that literally causes murders. When Mary Dooley s husband is killed in the night s events, she knows she must graft to keep the family afloat. And graft she does, becoming a name in her own right. But she still has to watch her daughter s life spiral into a vicious, hate-fuelled cycle of drugs and prostitution. Caught up in the carnage that is Imelda s existence are Mary s adored grandchildren, Jordanna and Kenny. Pretty little Jordanna isn t yet three and she already knows far too much. All she can do is look after her baby brother and try not to draw attention to herself.

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