Series 3: Episode 4

Joining Mariella Frostrup this week on The Book Show are number one crime writer Martina Cole with her new book The Business; delving deep into cyber space with Michael Dobbs in his new book The Edge of Madness; and cheering for great women is Sandi Toksvig with Girls Are Best.

Tune in at 7pm on 13 Nov, Sky Arts 1 and Sky Arts HD for the full story

If you liked Martina Cole's The Business and you're looking for further examples of hard-nosed crime, shot through with a good dose of emotion, try these:

Kimberley Chambers: Billie Jo
Terry, the lucky villain with a heart of gold, is riding for a fall. Michelle, the wife he hates and is plotting to leave, knows something is afoot, but not quite what. Billie Jo, their adored only daughter, loathes her parents quarrelling and her mother drinking, but will she understand when Terry tells her the truth: that he is planning to marry his pregnant secretary? Jade is a cut above the rest and waits patiently for the day when she and Terry can live peacefully together on his ill-gotten gains, probably on the Costa del Sol. But fate is about to deal a terrible hand, leaving Billie Jo's protected world in tatters.

Lee Martin: Gangsters' Wives
Sadie, Nicky, Poppy and Kate are four women who are on the surface sexy, confident and wealthy - but each of them is trapped in a loveless and sometimes violent marriage to four of the most feared London gangsters. For years, they have lived a life of idle luxury - shopping, lunching, and occasionally playing away - but all the time loyally staying behind the scenes while their men rule the East End criminal underworld with violence and terror. But times change and events conspire and they decide to fight back and take their men on at their own game. Because when it comes to getting the money, the female is definitely more deadly than the male.

If you liked Michael Dobss' The End Game Confirmed and you are looking for a couple more explosive thrillers to bed down with, why not try these:

Daniel Silva: The Secret Servant
The latest book from top American spy novelist Daniel Silva sees the return of art-restorer, spy and assassin Gabriel Allon. He is asked to make discreet enquiries when a leading terrorism analyst on the bring of a major discovery is found murdered in Amsterdam. The action moves to London when a young woman who just happens to be the god daughter of the US president is kidnapped. The demands for her release are clear and impossible to meet. Allon's mission is to find the woman and her kidnappers but as he gets closer to the truth, it proves far more unexpected than he could ever have imagined.

Eddy Shah: Second World
Lured from his birthday celebrations by a Marilyn Monroe avatar, the US president finds himself abducted into cyberspace by a mysterious presence called 'The Voice'. With only twenty-four hours before it will become impossible to return his consciousness to his body, the secret services are thrown into panic. The one called in to solve the mystery of his disappearance is Conor Smith, a disillusioned GameMaster, who enlists the help of Andi and Tebor, two young people who are permanently 'missing in the Web'. Soon they are investigating every corner of the overcrowded area of WebWorld known as the Brick. Meanwhile a couple of mysterious murders escalates the tension, both in VR and Reality, and paranoia reigns as the hero gradually tracks down the mysterious forces that always seem a couple of steps ahead.

If you liked Sandi Toksvig's Girls Are Best Confirmed and you are after more girl and boy-power literature, here are a few more to try:

Andrea Buchanan & Miriam Peskowitz: The Daring Book for Girls
This is a manual for everything that girls need to knowand that doesn't mean sewing buttonholes! Whether it's female heroes in history, secret note-passing skills, science projects, friendship bracelets, double dutch, cats cradle, the perfect cartwheel or the eternal mystery of what boys are thinking, this book has it all. But it's not just a guide to giggling at sleepoversalthough that's included, of course! Whether readers consider themselves tomboys, girly-girls, or a little bit of both, this book is every girl's invitation to adventure.

Paul Safont: True Adventures for Boys
Gathered from the pages of Wide World magazine, the longest-running true-adventure magazine of the twentieth century, "True Adventures for Boys" is filled with thrilling tales for all brave boys from 7 to 70, a fresh-air manly world where the only thing to fear is fear itself, and where big boys don't cry. Thrill to incredible-but-true tales of survival such as "I Fell 20,000 Feet" or "A Fight with a Leopard". Cringe at the insanity of "Over Niagara Falls in a Rubber Ball" and "The Bird Man's Final Gamble". Marvel at "Buried Alive by a Dead Elephant" and be moved and astonished by the epic misadventure of Maurice Wilson's 1934 solo assault on Everest probably the most amazing true story ever told.


Fine Line
This week A.N. Wilson picks his favourite line from The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

Guest Reviewer:
Our first monthly guest reviewer is the Sunday Times' Fiction Editor Peter Kemp who recommends three books:

Toni Morrison: Mercy
In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class division, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were carefully planted and took root. Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a smallholding in the harsh North. Despite his distaste for dealing in 'flesh', he takes a small slave girl, in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. A Mercy reveals what lies under the surface of slavery but at its heart, this is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter in a violent ad-hoc world - a world where acts of mercy, like everything else, have unforeseen consequences.

A.A. Milne: The Red House Mystery
Far from the gentle slopes of the Hundred Acre Wood lies The Red House, the setting for A.A Milnes only detective story, where secret passages, uninvited guests, a sinister valet and a puzzling murder lay the foundations for a classic crime caper. And when the local police prove baffled, it is up to a guest at a local inn to appoint himself Sherlock Holmes and, together with his friend and loyal Watson, delve deeper into the mysteries of the dead man.

Simon Gray: Coda
Coda is Simon Gray's frank, profoundly moving and often painfully funny account of what he refers to as the beginning of my dying. During a holiday with his wife in Crete, Gray recalls the scans, consultations and biopsies that have dominated the previous months while offering unforgettable portraits of fellow tourists and digressions on everything from lying to the matre d and concerns about tipping to crimes of passion and his new-found obsession with obituaries.


Book Club
This week we visit the National Theatre Bookshop in London who recommend their book club read, Ian Holm's Acting My Life

Guests’ literary heroes and heroines
Martina Cole's favourite character is from Louisa May Alcott's The Inheritance; Michael Dobbs' favourite character comes from Biggles Flies East by W.E. Johns; Sandi Toksvig has found her favourite from Ian Fleming's Live and Let Die; and Peter Kemp adores a character from H.G. Wells' The Time Machine: An Invention - but who are the characters from these books that our authors consider their literary heroes and heroines?

To read the opening extracts of these books and find out more about the authors, visit Lovereading.co.uk.