Customer Reviews
Dull and boring - By: S. P. Richardson, 26 Nov 2008 
I have read Martina Cole's other books & found them on the whole to be gripping & exciting. After the last one, The Take I said I would not buy any more as I found it very repetitive & predictable. I made the mistake of taking advantage of a special offer & buying a copy of Faces. I wish I had left my money in my purse. I have given up on this book after the first 100 pages as it would appear to be going nowhere - there is no plot that I can discern & it just seems to be a rehash of previous works with the names changed. It is just boring & dull & there are other more exciting books out there to be read. I am off to find one now
Disgusting, boring - By: S. Ignatius, 02 Nov 2008 I bought this book to read during my vacation & what I got; boring, alll the time repeating same disgusting things page after page. After I had been reading ab. 50-100 pages, I just started to turn pages without reallly reading, I just had a look over.
Martina Cole : Faces - By: Christine Hall, 28 Oct 2008 
Being a fan of Martina Cole's work, I was extremely disappointed in this book, which I found extremely repetitive in the narration & contradictory. One of the most annoying books I have read!
For insomniacs only - By: PollyBelle, 21 Oct 2008 I've been a fan of Martina Cole's books & usuallly enjoy them. However this was the first one that I couldn't be bothered to read the whole way through. The main character, Danny Boy, was so odious that I couldn't care less what happened to him. The other characters were dull & repetitive - more like a Greek chorous than having personalities of their own. After this I won't be so quick to buy any more of her books but borrow them from the library instead - see if they are any good before parting with my money.
Bring Back Bob Hoskins! - By: Michael Hurst, 14 Oct 2008 This was the first Martina Cole book I have read, & it will be the last....What can I say, the characters were so two dimensional they couldn't have been ironed any flatter. But it wasn't just the characters that lacked definition & texture; there was a complete absence of plot - the story ran in a straight line from start to finish with no twist , turns or revelations; infact just by reading just the 18 page opening prologue you basicallly got the gist of the whole 500 page novel. I wish I'd done that whilst waiting in Tescos to buy it in the first place! It would have been a mercy. The thoughts & action of the main players were repeated endlessly - it was literal dioareha. I've lost count of how many times Martina told me that Danny was a 'looney tune' & that Michael was the 'brains behind the outfit' & that Mary 'loved Danny but hated Danny'......By the end of the 10th chapter I was seriously thinking of doing something dispicable with a claw hammer to this 500 page marathon slog of a book.
It's "a given" that this novel lacks a moral compass - I supose that thats the thrill of this type of book, but that the police were alll villians, & alll the east end of london were complicit in the crimes being carried out, alll the old biddys loved the Faces for keeping the street clean, & alll the crimes were on victims that deserved what was coming to them (more or less is) was hard to stomach from a novelist whom were told on the cover "tells it how it is(?)". Come on now lets be a little bit more realistic....
My advice is to steer well clear of Martina Cole novels if there alll like this one - to compensate I'm of to watch ' The Long Good Friday' with Bob Hoskins - now that's a real East End Gangster!
