In 1992 Martina Cole published Dangerous Lady and more or less invented a genre. Readers have been chasing that feeling ever since: families who would kill for each other, women who refuse to stay in their place, and London streets you can practically smell.
So when you have read every Martina on the shelf, where do you go? This list is for you: the queen herself, ten authors often recommended to her readers, six of the best gangland family sagas, and brand new thrillers set in the same world.
Quick picks: what are you in the mood for?
| If you want | Read |
|---|---|
| An East End family war | The Feud, Kimberley Chambers |
| A woman who takes over the firm | Dirty Game, Jessie Keane |
| A heist with a twist | Widows, Lynda La Plante |
| Revenge served slowly | The Debt, Roberta Kray |
| Northern grit | The Front, Mandasue Heller |
| Glasgow estates | Blood Brothers, Heather Atkinson |
| Essex families | Betrayal, Kerry Kaya |
| A crime family saga across decades | The Take, Martina Cole · Blood Sister, Dreda Say Mitchell |
| A dying matriarch and an unsolved murder | Who Killed Lenny Gunn?, Kadie Vellis |
| One night and a ticking clock | Dead by 06:00, Kadie Vellis |
Not sure? Take the 60 second quiz and we will match you with your next read.
What makes a book feel like Martina Cole?
- Family is everything. The love is fierce and so is the damage.
- The women run the show, or end up running it after the men make a mess of things.
- Real places. Streets, pubs and estates you could walk to tomorrow. (Curious? See the real London behind the Kadie Vellis books.)
- Violence that costs something. Nobody walks away clean.
- Dark humour. The kind of jokes you only make when life is hard.
Start with the queen herself
Dangerous Lady
Martina Cole, 1992 · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
Where it all began. Maura Ryan grows up surrounded by brothers who are always on the make, and ends up running her own corner of gangland London. If you somehow skipped it, start here. If you read it years ago, it holds up.
Want her newest? No Regret (2025), set in 1960s Soho, is co-written with Jacqui Rose, who has worked with Martina on her recent novels.
Best for: the full Martina experience, from the very beginning.
Your favourite Martina? Read this next
Everyone has the Martina that hooked them. Find yours and pick up the matching read.
| If you loved | Read next |
|---|---|
| Dangerous Lady | Dirty Game by Jessie Keane, then I Am Queenie Gunn. Two more women who end up running the show. |
| Maura’s Game | Ruthless by Kerry Barnes. A woman back in the East End with revenge on her mind. |
| The Take | The Feud by Kimberley Chambers, then Who Killed Lenny Gunn? Families, loyalty and the people you should never have trusted. |
| No Regret | I Am Queenie Gunn. Old London, a girl from nothing and a man everyone fears. |
The authors Martina Cole fans read next
The Feud
Kimberley Chambers · More books like Kimberley Chambers · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
Two families have been at war for over a decade: the Mitchells of Canning Town and their bitter rivals the O’Haras, a travelling family from Stratford. Caught in the middle are two children who grow up to love the wrong people. The first of a trilogy, so you will not run out any time soon.
Best for: big, sprawling family sagas.
SIDE EFFECTS you will start eyeing up your in-laws at Sunday dinner.
Then try Who Killed Lenny Gunn?: another East End family tearing itself apart.
Dirty Game
Jessie Keane · More books like Jessie Keane · Her website ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
Keane’s debut introduces Annie Bailey, later Annie Carter, a young woman who gets herself tangled up with the feared Carter family and ends up caught between two rival gangs. It launched a whole series, and Annie only gets tougher.
Best for: a heroine who outplays the men.
SIDE EFFECTS a sudden urge to buy a fur coat and take over a nightclub.
Then try I Am Queenie Gunn: a market girl who becomes the most feared woman in North London.
Widows
Lynda La Plante · More books like Lynda La Plante · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
Three women lose their husbands in a security van robbery that goes horribly wrong. Then Dolly Rawlins finds her husband’s plans for the job, and decides they will finish what the men started. It began as a TV series in 1983 and became a Hollywood film directed by Steve McQueen.
Best for: heists, nerve and a final twist.
SIDE EFFECTS you will never look at a security van the same way again.
Then try Carol Gunn Returns: a woman cleaning up after other people’s crimes.
The Debt
Roberta Kray · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
Johnny Frank has spent eighteen years inside for murder, and he is coming out with one thing on his mind: the man who put him there. Kray was married to Reggie Kray, and her feel for prison life and the East End underworld runs right through her fiction.
Best for: slow burn revenge.
SIDE EFFECTS you will think twice before owing anyone anything.
Then try Dead by 06:00: a man who lost thirty two years to a crime he did not commit.
The Front
Mandasue Heller · More books like Mandasue Heller · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
Four old school friends rob a small supermarket on a Manchester estate, expecting easy money. The shop turns out to be a front for something much bigger and much nastier. Heller’s debut, set in the city she has called home since 1982.
Best for: northern grit and small crimes that turn into big trouble.
SIDE EFFECTS you will never trust your local corner shop again.
Then try Dead by 06:00: two lads, one bad decision and a night that changes everything.
Geezer Girls
Dreda Say Mitchell · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
Years ago, four girls from a children’s home were forced to work for a man they called the Geezer, until something happened that made them fight back. Now he has found them again. Mitchell was born and raised in the East End and has won the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Dagger.
Best for: the East End written from the inside.
SIDE EFFECTS a strong desire to call your oldest friends and check they are alright.
Then try My Name Is Not Evie Marsh: a woman with a new name and an old score to settle.
Ruthless
Kerry Barnes · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
A sweeping revenge story that travels from the East End to the New York Mafia, with Dolly at its heart. Barnes grew up on a council estate in south east London and has written more than twenty gangland novels since.
Best for: epic revenge across two cities.
SIDE EFFECTS you will start plotting revenge on people who wronged you in 1997.
Then try Little Apples Grow: a carer with a very long memory.
Dangerous Games
Gillian Godden · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
The origin story of gangster Tony Lambrianu, taken from the family vineyard in Italy by his mother in the middle of the night, and raised on the hard streets of London. The first of the Lambrianu series.
Best for: watching a gangster being made.
SIDE EFFECTS you will catch yourself rooting for someone you really should not.
Then try Who Killed Lenny Gunn?: a gangster’s legacy and the family fighting over it.
Blood Brothers
Heather Atkinson · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
On Glasgow’s Gallowburn estate, Jamie Gray and his friends, the Blood Brothers, run things their way. Then a feud with the Lawson family turns into all out war. The first of a four book series.
Best for: Scottish grit and loyalty tested to breaking point.
SIDE EFFECTS you will want to know who your real ride or dies are.
Then try Dead by 06:00: two boys from different worlds who swore to look after each other.
Betrayal
Kerry Kaya · See it on Amazon ↗
Meet the Tempest family. Kaya writes Essex gangland thrillers set on the kind of huge council estate she grew up on, and family loyalty is always at the centre.
Best for: Essex, and families who close ranks.
SIDE EFFECTS you will never answer the door to a family member the same way again.
Then try Little Apples Grow: a crime family with secrets buried in the garden.
The best gangland family sagas
If it’s the family you’re really here for (who inherits, who betrays whom, and who’s been keeping a secret since 1968), start with these six.
The Take
Martina Cole, 2005 · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
Freddie Jackson walks out of prison convinced the underworld belongs to him. His wife Jackie wants him home and in her bed, her sister Maggie wants Freddie’s cousin Jimmy, and Jimmy has plans of his own. It won the British Book Award for Crime Thriller of the Year and became a Sky series starring Tom Hardy.
Best for: villains who are properly vile and family rows at full volume.
Blood Sister
Dreda Say Mitchell, 2016 · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
Book one of the Flesh and Blood series, which follows the Miller family across forty years on an East London estate.
Best for: sisters, secrets and a saga that spans decades.
Playing with Fire
Stephanie Harte · See it on Amazon ↗
East End loan shark Davie Saunders is gunned down at his own daughter’s wedding. His widow and three daughters take over the business.
Best for: the women taking the keys to the kingdom.
Under Dog
Kerry Kaya, 2018 · See it on Amazon ↗
When Davey is murdered, he leaves his whole Essex empire to Tommy Carter, and nobody thinks Tommy will last five minutes. Book one of the Carter Brothers series.
Best for: brothers, loyalty and an underdog.
Runaway Girl
Emma Tallon, 2017 · About the book ↗ · See it on Amazon ↗
Anna Davis escapes her sadistic gangster boyfriend and lands in the world of London club boss Freddie Tyler. It opens the Tyler Family series.
Best for: a love story with your gangland.
The Long Firm
Jake Arnott, 1999 · See it on Amazon ↗
The cult classic. 1960s London, seen through the gangster Harry Starks and everyone caught in his orbit.
Best for: a literary edge that’s still as cool as anything on this list.
The best gangland and London crime thrillers out now
01Gunn Family Trilogy, Book One
Who Killed Lenny Gunn?
Whoever finds her husband’s killer inherits the Gunn empire.
Nothing brings a family together like a dying matriarch and an empire up for grabs. Nothing tears it apart faster, either.
Queenie Gunn has run her corner of Islington and Hackney for decades. Now she’s dying, and she has called the whole family together to tell them what happens next. Her husband Lenny was murdered in 1996, and nobody was ever caught. Somebody sitting in that room knows a great deal more than they’ve ever let on, and the prize for finding out is everything Queenie has built.
Perfect if you love: gangland family sagasa whodunnit with every suspect in one roomLondon crime fiction
Side effects: you’ll start eyeing up your own family over Christmas dinner.
02Gunn Family Trilogy, Book Two
I Am Queenie Gunn
Before they feared her, they underestimated her.
Every gangland empire starts somewhere. This one started with a sharp tongue on Chapel Market.
Long before the money, the big house and the reputation, Queenie was a sharp-tongued girl from Chapel Market with nothing to lose. This is the story of how she met Lenny Gunn, and how she became the woman nobody in London was stupid enough to cross. A gritty, female-led crime novel about the price of power.
Perfect if you love: strong women in a man’s worldrise-to-power storiesold East London
Set in: Chapel Market, Islington
Side effects: you will never underestimate a market girl again.
03Gunn Family Trilogy, Book Three
Carol Gunn Returns
She was dead for twenty-one years.
We can’t tell you anything about this one. Honestly. Our lips are sealed.
The final book in the Gunn Family Trilogy. To keep it spoiler-free, all I’ll say is this: read Who Killed Lenny Gunn? first.
Perfect if you love: series finalesfamily secretstwists you won’t see coming
Side effects: an urgent need to reread the whole trilogy.
04Standalone thriller
Dead by 06:00
They All Knew He Was Innocent.
Two boys from Islington. One estate, one big house, and a debt that has waited thirty-two years to be paid.
Two in the morning, and one phone call. Danny grew up on the Packington estate. Theo grew up in a big house on Thornhill Square. They were best friends until Danny went to prison for something he didn’t do. Thirty-two years later they have four hours to settle it, and by six this morning somebody is going to pay.
Perfect if you love: ticking-clock crime thrillersfriendship and betrayaljustice that’s been a long time coming
Set in: Islington
Side effects: you won’t sleep before 6am. That’s sort of the point.
05New: out 1 December, pre-order now
Little Apples Grow
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Every East End family has a secret. The Driscolls have a whole garden full.
Rosie Hart takes a live-in job caring for Vi Driscoll, the dying matriarch of a feared East End crime family. The house is crumbling and backs onto the cemetery in Highgate. Rosie has her own reasons for being there, and they have nothing to do with kindness. The Driscolls have buried a great many things over the years, and Rosie has come to find out where.
Perfect if you love: East End crime familiesslow-burn revengedark, gothic London
Set in: Highgate
Side effects: you’ll never look at an apple the same way again.
Darker and more psychological: four more thrillers out now
If you like your crime fiction with more mind games, these psychological thrillers are full of secrets, lies and twists.
The Ghosted Wife
Till death do us part.
Maria’s husband walks past her as if she isn’t there, and her children don’t answer when she speaks. Something in that house doesn’t add up, and the last line will stay with you for a long time.
Buy on Amazon →
Don’t Lie Back
You can always trust your therapist. Can’t you?
Nicole helps women leave men who control them. Then a new client starts describing her partner, and he sounds an awful lot like Nicole’s own husband.
Buy on Amazon →
My Name Is Not Evie Marsh
Her name was the first lie.
A new name, a new look and a job inside the company of the man who ruined her family. Revenge was the plan. Nobody planned for what she’d find out.
Buy on Amazon →
One of Us Dies on Saturday
Two texts. One weekend away.
Lauren gets a text saying her husband will kill her on Saturday. At the same moment, Mark gets one saying his wife will kill him. Both of them have something to hide.
Buy on Amazon →
Watched it on screen? Read these
The TakeThe Runaway Two Martina Cole novels became Sky series. If you came to her through the telly, The Feud and Dirty Game have the same family drama on the page.
Widows Lynda La Plante’s 1983 series, and the Steve McQueen film, both started life as her story. The novel is the one to read.
MobLand Loved the show? We wrote a whole guide: books like MobLand, with the Gunn Family Trilogy at the top.
Your questions answered
What should I read after Martina Cole?
Try the Gunn Family Trilogy for a London crime family saga, or Little Apples Grow for an East End matriarch and a carer with revenge on her mind.
What order should I read the Gunn Family Trilogy in?
Who Killed Lenny Gunn?, then I Am Queenie Gunn, then Carol Gunn Returns.
Are these books on Kindle?
Yes. Every book is out now on Kindle apart from Little Apples Grow, which is out on 1 December 2026 and available to pre-order now.
What books are most like Martina Cole?
For classic East End gangland, try The Feud by Kimberley Chambers, Dirty Game by Jessie Keane, Widows by Lynda La Plante and The Debt by Roberta Kray. For something brand new in the same world, try Who Killed Lenny Gunn? by Kadie Vellis.
Which Martina Cole book should I read first?
Start with Dangerous Lady, her first novel from 1992. The Take is another favourite: it won the British Book Award for Crime Thriller of the Year and became a Sky TV series.
Is Martina Cole still writing?
Yes. Her recent novels, including No Regret in 2025, are written in collaboration with Jacqui Rose for health reasons.
What should I read after Kimberley Chambers?
Try Jessie Keane, Kerry Barnes or Kerry Kaya for the same mix of family loyalty and East End grit, or the Gunn Family Trilogy by Kadie Vellis for a London crime family with a murder mystery at its heart.
Are there books like Martina Cole with a twist ending?
Widows by Lynda La Plante is famous for its final twist. For something newer, every Kadie Vellis book is built around one, starting with Who Killed Lenny Gunn?
Are there gangland books set outside London?
Plenty. Mandasue Heller writes Manchester, Heather Atkinson writes Glasgow and Kerry Kaya writes Essex.
What is the difference between a gangland novel and a psychological thriller?
Gangland novels are about crime families, power and loyalty. Psychological thrillers live inside one character’s head, with the danger often coming from someone close. Some books, like Little Apples Grow, do both.
What is a gangland family saga?
A crime novel built around a criminal family rather than a detective, following who rules, who betrays whom and who inherits, often across several books or generations.
What are the best gangland family sagas?
Start with The Take by Martina Cole, Blood Sister by Dreda Say Mitchell and Who Killed Lenny Gunn? by Kadie Vellis, then see the full list above.
Prefer your twists domestic rather than gangland? Try our list of books like Freida McFadden.