Martina Cole – Close

Martina Cole – Close
Violent with obscene language (think Malcolm may like it!!!)It begins in present day London with Lil Brodie on her death bed, dying of cancer, with her children around her. Her mind is still strong and as she looks at her children we are taken back in time to the beginning.
It’s the 1960’s and in London crime rules. One crime lord and his cronies rule the roost until another violently takes him out. The Brodies, Pat Brodie, is the next contender. But hard as Pat is he takes a fancy to Lil. Lil has had a hard, unloving upbringing, her Pat takes her out of that life, and raises her status. Lil rules the home taking care of her man and her 5 kids, helped by her leech of a mum who never loved her as a child but just latches on for the prestige it brings. But one child, Lance, bothers Lil, she can’t take to him. Lils mum loves Lance with a passion, she realizes what loving a child should have been like and spoils Lance with a blind love. Lil cannot love him, can’t bear him near her, in fact everyone who meet him say he is strange, cold and aloof. Her twin daughters also give her cause for concern as one is very quiet and withdrawn
When Lil’s husband Pat is brutally murdered in front of his family, their comfortable life is threatened as another steals the throne. Lil does what she has to, to protect her family, even though it involves being used by the man who orchestrated her husbands death.
Lil’s eldest son, Pat Brodie junior, turns out to be a chip off the old block but with a strong taste for revenge. With the help of Lance they take back what belonged to their family and Pat junior now wears the crown.
It’s a family saga of death, life, power and love. Its like ‘The Krey brothers’. It spans 40 years of the London criminal world in all its violence.
It is 500 pages but had she not kept repeating herself it may have only been 400. I was engrossed in it but the repetition got on my nerves after half way. I read time and again how Annie never loved her daughter Lil, that Lance was weird & how Lil felt about him….I KNOW YOU’VE TOLD ME 50 TIMES!
I think all who read it would have guessed what was happening with Lance and his sister, it was so obvious, so maybe we were supposed to??
So, if you like your books shocking and violent, if you liked the film ‘The Kreys’ you will enjoy reading this book.