Watching Martina Cole on The Book Show

[BumgrapesofWrath]

I'm watching Martina Cole on The Book Show and actually I think what she says about her novels makes them seem quite interesting. I'm not a literary snob but I've never been interested in reading her books, but I am now wondering whether they are worth reading. Opinions please!

I saw her on bbc4 or some such thing not that long ago and was really put off by her manner. I was staying away from home one night and someone gave me one of her books to read, which I duly did. There's something about how she writes that made me feel slightly uncomfortable but intrigued at the same time. She writes about lives that I couldn't imagine existed but there's an authenticity about her writing that makes me believe in her characters. I absolutely believed that she was writing about real people. I didn't finish her book and don't think I'd pick up another but I find myself having a respect for her that I didn't previously.

I've only ever read one of her novels, and that was The Jump. I thought it was gripping but, at the same time, unsettling. It seemed to me that she writes about the sort of people she knows or has known. I could be wrong here, but I thought I read somewhere that she grew up in the same area where the Krays operated, and moved in the same circles.