Close - Softcover

Cole, Martina

4.12

3,050 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 044654194X ISBN 13: 9780446541947

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2009

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The #1 bestselling novelist in the UK now makes her U.S. debut with a hardhitting story that combines the brutality and deep family ties of The Sopranos with an unparalleled look at the underbelly of London's gang land.
Patrick Brodie is on the way up. He is a risk-taker like his alcoholic father, and knows exactly how far he is prepared to go to get what he wants. Before long, Patrick has ruthlessly taken out the old guard of the criminal underworld and become a legend in his own lifetime.

The kind of women he is normally attracted to have no foolish dreams of marriage, children, or, God help them, love. But Lily Diamond is different. There's something about her that has gotten under Patrick's skin, and all he can think about is making her happy and keeping her safe.

Eventually they settle down and have a family, and grow determined that their children will not have to face the same kind of lives they did. But then, the unthinkable happens, and everything is suddenly, irreversibly changed.

Spanning over forty years in the underbelly of crime, CLOSE is powerful, shocking, unsettling, and utterly addictive.

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About the Author:

Martina Cole was born and brought up in Essex, England. Her first novel, Dangerous Lady, was an instant bestseller and became a highly successful TV drama series. Since then Martina Cole has written 12 more bestselling novels set in the criminal underworld, one of which, The Jump, was also made into a successful British television drama.

From Booklist:

Best-sellers don’t always translate from one country to another, even when they’re written in the same language. Cole has 14 chart-topping novels in the UK and yet remains largely unknown in the U.S. Her publisher hopes to change that by making Close (first published in 2006) her American debut. A committed marketing effort may well generate interest in Cole, but the question remains whether Americans will stick with her book. It seems unlikely. This sprawling family saga of London gangsters is sometimes violent yet curiously bloodless, marred by repetition and clich�, and—although Cole clearly knows her turf—devoid of the specifics that might make it come alive for readers unfamiliar with the milieu. Worse, she tends to cut away from scenes just as they get interesting, instead lingering endlessly on her characters’ thoughts. This impressionistic approach leaves readers looking for solid anchors of plot, time line, and telling detail. It’s a brick-size book that could have been cut by half without serious loss, and though things improve somewhat after the 100-page mark, the question is whether readers not on assignment will get that far. Bad books sometimes do become best-sellers, usually because they tap into our psyche in a particular way; this one obviously has strong appeal at home but, despite the strength of the pound versus the dollar, doesn’t seem likely to travel. --Keir Graff

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