Martina colebiography
The Crime Writers’ Association
Andrew Taylor, Diamond Dagger winner in 2009, interviews the winner of the Diamond Dagger 2021, Martina Cole.
Martina Cole was born in Essex, the youngest of five children of Irish Catholic parents. Before embarking on her hugely successful writing career, she had worked in a variety of jobs, ranging from a wine waitress to an agency nurse. It was the publication of her debut novel, Dangerous Lady, in 1991, which set her walking down the mean streets of gritty crime fiction. Her novels, many of which have been adapted for television, have been praised for their keen sense of atmospheric realism and their strong, female protagonists. Her latest novel, Loyalty, is due to be published by Headline in 2022.
- What was your first childhood encounter with crime fiction?
Both my mum and my nan were crazy about true crime and detective magazines and, after they finished reading them, I used to take them to read later.
- How has your own life experience affected the novels you write?
I come from a big, Irish family, so many of my books have big, Irish families and I am Catholic, so I write a lot about moral dilemmas. There were also a lot of criminals where I lived so I used to hear a lot of stories about them.
- Your sales now run into the tens of millions, and you’ve spent more weeks at No 1 on the original fiction bestseller list than any other adult novelist. But what led you to write your very first novel? And when was the moment you knew it would be a success and that you’d carry on writing?
I have always loved to read books, for as long as I can remember, so it was a natural progression to start writing. When I wrote Dangerous Lady, I sent it to a couple of publishers direct and was knocked back. I rewrote it 10 years later and I remember sending it to an agent on a Thursday and on the Monday, he (Darley Anderson) called me and said, “You are going to be a star.” It was a life-changing moment.
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Martina Cole
1992 saw the first success of many for local author Martina Cole, when she received a record breaking advance of £150,000 for her first novel “Dangerous lady”. Martina is Essex through and through – born and brought up in the East End, she had a house in the Benfleet Road, before moving to Kent to be near her son’s family.
18 years later with 16 crime novels under her belt, she has confounded one critic who called her a one book wonder. However it wasn’t all plain sailing…by the age of 19 Martina was a single mother living in a carpet-less council flat in Tilbury with her son Christopher. A situation that was deemed more shocking then than now and with her friends pouring scorn on her writing ambitions, life wasn’t exactly rosy.
Maybe the gritty realism of her books would not have come about without such an unpromising background. It is a tribute to her perseverance and talent that she triumphed in such a spectacular fashion.
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An Echo profile by Jane Williams, part one
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An Echo profile by Jane Williams, part two
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Author
By Mark ThresPage added:
02/12/2010Martina Cole
British crime writer
Martina Cole
Born (1959-03-30) 30 March 1959 (age 65)
Essex, EnglandOccupation Writer Period 1992–present Genre Crime Notable works Dangerous Lady; The Runaway; The Take Notable awards Crime Writers Award Children 2 www.martinacole.co.uk Eilidh Martina Cole is a British crime writer. As of 2021 she has released twenty-six novels about crime, most of which examine London's gangster underworld. Four of her novels, Dangerous Lady, The Jump, The Take and The Runaway have been adapted into high-rating television dramas. She has achieved sales of over fourteen million in the UK alone and her tenth novel, The Know, spent seven weeks on The Sunday Times hardback best-sellers list.
Early life
Eilidh Martina Cole was born 30 March 1959, in Essex, England, to Irish Catholic parents, and was the youngest of five children. Her mother was a psychiatric nurse from Glasnevin, County Dublin and her father was a merchant seaman from Cork City. Her cousin is the Cork politician Denis Cregan. She was expelled from her convent school aged 15 after allegedly being caught reading a Harold Robbins novel.
She married for the first time aged 16, but the marriage only lasted a year. She had her first child at the age of 18. Her parents both died when she was in her early 20s.
Prior to her literary success, Cole had a variety of low-paid jobs, including working as a cleaner, a wine waitress, an agency nurse and a supermarket shelf-stacker.
Career
Writing
Cole's breakthrough came in 1991, when her manuscript for Dangerous Lady was accepted by the literary agent Darley Anderson and sold for a record £150,000. The book was published by Headline the following year.
Most of her novels feature a female protagonist or antihero, and some take place within the Irish commun
- Eilidh Martina Cole is a British
Martina Cole
The Ladykiller (DI Kate Burrows, #1) 4.38 avg rating — 7,641 ratings — published 1993 — 47 editionsDamaged 4.22 avg rating — 7,677 ratings — published 2017 — 11 editionsTwo Women 4.35 avg rating — 6,907 ratings — published 1999 — 46 editionsDangerous Lady (Maura Ryan, #1) 4.36 avg rating — 6,517 ratings — published 1992 — 36 editionsNo Mercy 4.08 avg rating — 6,320 ratings — published 2019 — 3 editionsThe Know 4.32 avg rating — 5,677 ratings — published 2003 — 36 editionsThe Runaway 4.36 avg rating — 5,575 ratings — published 1997 — 23 editionsLoyalty 4.53 avg rating — 5,200 ratings — published 2021 — 5 editionsThe Take 4.20 avg rating — 5,250 ratings — published 2005 — 44 editionsGet Even: A dark thriller of murder, mystery and revenge 4.20 avg rating — 5,073 ratings — published 2015- Born in 1958 into
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