Apps for Martina Cole & Mark Billingham

I haven't got an i-anything but I've stumbled across mentions of apps for Martina Cole and Mark Billingham recently:


For the first time, MARTINA COLE: THE EXTRAS iPhone app gives you exclusive access to Martina Cole’s world and the inside scoop on her bestselling novels.

This is the definitive guide to Martina and is perfect for all her fans and those of you who are just discovering her fantastic writing. Covering all of her bestselling novels from DANGEROUS LADY to HARD GIRLS, the app allows you to:

Watch Martina talk about her novels
Read the first chapter from each of her bestselling books
Find out more about Martina in an exclusive extended biography
Have instant access to buy the books you haven’t read

Find out more here.

And it was recently announced in The Bookseller that a Mark Billingam/Tom Thorne app would be released on 7 October:

Little, Brown will be launching an app for Mark Billingham's DI Tom Thorne crime novels, in what it is calling an "unprecedented partnership" with Sky and Trade Mobile.

The app will be available free for users of iPhone and Android handsets from 7th October, coinciding with a new six-part TV series, "Thorne", broadcasting on Sky 1 HD.

The publisher said the app would "act as a companion to the Thorne series of novels and the TV series thorne, offering exclusive material including author videos, images, an interactive map of Thorne's London, a playlist, as well as stills, trailers and interviews from the new Sky 1 series".


Readers of Billingham's novels Sleepyhead and Scaredycat (re-issued by Little, Brown as TV tie-in editions on 7th October) will also be able to use the App to go "BeyondTheStory", with Trade Mobile's searchable page technology providing extra detail relating to characters, locations and plots.

On the High 'C's

Good news in the Bookseller for fans of Ann Cleeves and Martina Cole:

Pan Macmillan is to rejacket crime author Ann Cleeves’ Inspector Vera Stanhope novels with an “atmospheric” new look.

The publisher has also delayed publication of the titles to tie in with broadcast of the ITV1 adaptation of Cleeves’ novel Hidden Depths, which has now been set for September 2010.

Hidden Depths, The Crow Trap and Telling Tales will now be published on 3rd September as £7.99 B-­format paperbacks by Pan, with a new Vera Stanhope novel, as yet untitled, to be published as a £16.99 hardback on the same day by Macmillan.

Raven Black, the first title in Cleeves’ Shetland series, will also be a BBC Radio 4 “Afternoon Play” in January.

Read the whole article and view the new cover here.

Headline has signed a new four-book deal with bestselling crime author Martina Cole.

Since Cole signed with Headline in 1992, for the debut Dangerous Lady, she has published 16 bestsellers with combined sales of more than 10m copies. Her latest novel, Hard Girls, has sold more than 126,000 copies in five weeks and knocked Dan Brown off the number one spot.

This year Sky One broadcast a dramatisation of her novel "The Take". The same channel will show an adaptation of The Runaway in early 2010.

Read the whole article here.

Almost free Martina Cole book

Woolworths are giving away copies of Martina Cole's Broken when you hand in a voucher from Saturday's Daily Express. From Publishing News:

WOOLWORTHS IS LAUNCHING a promotion with the Daily Express from this Saturday (31 May) where it will sell featured titles for £2.99. 'Woolworths and the Daily Express recommends' will be announced in the front page of Saturday's issue, together with a voucher for a free copy of Martina Cole's Broken (Headline) to be collected from Woolworths branches. Future promotions will then be held every Friday with a half-page editorial feature on each title in the Express, while branches will promote the offer at the front of store. The first book at £2.99 will be Andy McNab's Crossfire (Corgi). The promotion has no fixed end date.

Martina Cole books to be televised

From Digital Spy:

Warner Sisters Productions and Granada International are developing two new novels by Martina Cole for television, they have announced.

The Graft and The Take, the best-seller's most recent books, will be produced by Warner and distributed by Granada.

Warner Sisters creator Lavinia Warner (Tenko) commented: "We’re really excited about the project. It is high time for more of Martina’s work to be available to television viewers.

"Her honest and tough novels, vividly revealing the effects of violence and crime on family life in the UK today, are absorbing and addictive. Her talent for strong characters and storylines makes the books perfect for TV adaptation."

Granada is already distributor for Cole/Warner adaptations Dangerous Lady and The Jump which drew strong audiences for ITV1.

Cole said: "I am thrilled to see two more of my books adapted for television. It really feels like I'm coming home - working and collaborating with Warner Sisters again."

Granada head of drama Noel Hedges added: "Martina Cole is simply a publishing phenomenon. Her books go straight to the top of the bestseller lists and stay there.

"At their heart Martina’s novels contain gripping, highly commercial plots and characters that appeal to lovers of crime the world over."

New Reviews on Euro Crime

Just a mini-update this weekend as I'm away for a couple of days so instead of on Sunday, I bring you reviews of books by two of the UK's female big hitters: 'Close' by Martina Cole* and 'The Red Dahlia' by Lynda La Plante, reviewed by Sunnie Gill and Karen Chisholm respectively.

*There is a huge waiting list for this in the library - currently 147 reservations for 51 copies.