Gillian Godden Books in Order

If you want Tony Lambrianu's story from the beginning: Dangerous Games → Nasty Business → Francesca → Dirty Dealings → The Bad Boy.
If you like family led gangland sagas: Diamond Geezer → Rough Diamonds → Queen of Diamonds → Forever Diamonds.
If you prefer a tight two book crime romance: Gold Digger → Fools Gold.
If you want the newer Silva family storyline: The Street → The Troublemakers → Turf War.

Gillian Godden was born in London and spent more than thirty years living in the city’s East End, surrounded by the pubs, clubs and street corners that now fill her novels. Today she lives in Yorkshire and still works full time for the NHS in Hull, balancing life as a medical centre key worker with life as a gangland crime writer.

Her day job is at an inner city GP practice in East Hull, where she sees patients from every walk of life and rarely has the same day twice. Those conversations, along with memories of years spent working in strip pubs and other venues in London, gave her a feel for the voices and dilemmas that run through her fiction.

Godden grew up in a big family as the youngest of seven siblings, and she is open about taking a roundabout route into writing. She left school with a handful of qualifications, went back to college later to study business and administration, and eventually moved into medical administration for the health service.

Writing started as a way to fill a quiet house. When her son left for university she found herself with time on her hands and joined a local book club competition, scribbling the first draft of what became Francesca in a notebook. The story did not win its prize, losing out to an entry about a pigeon fancier and an avid crocheter, but it convinced her that readers might want to spend time with her characters.

She self published several early books while still working shifts at the surgery, then went on to sign with independent publisher Boldwood Books, who reissued her backlist and brought her work to a wider audience. Despite the change, her process has stayed very hands on, and she still likes to draft scenes longhand after work or at weekends before typing them up.

Godden’s fiction centres on overlapping worlds of London gangland. The Tony Lambrianu series follows Antonias “Tony” Lambrianu from a brutal childhood on the streets to life as a crime boss and family man, with books like Dangerous Games, Nasty Business, Francesca and Dirty Dealings mixing violent power struggles with loyalty and love.

Her Diamond books, beginning with Diamond Geezer and running through Rough Diamonds, Queen of Diamonds and Forever Diamonds, shift the focus to polished lawyer Nick Diamond and, later, to his widow Patsy as she tries to hold together a dangerous criminal empire stretching from Chelsea to Glasgow estates.

In the Gold books, Gold Digger and Fools Gold, she tracks Julie and Ralph Gold from the streets of Liverpool to new schemes in London, exploring how a couple who live by their wits cling to each other while circling bigger players like Tony Lambrianu and his associates.

More recently the Silvas series, beginning with The Street and continuing with The Troublemakers and Turf War, has moved the action to a village pub and a family trying to go straight, only to find that past crimes and their children’s choices keep dragging them back into danger.

Across these worlds, readers come back for what feels real, including sharp dialogue, big hearted but flawed families and a mix of brutality, dark humour and everyday detail drawn from real workplaces and lives. Godden writes about dangerous people, but she rarely forgets the cost of violence on children, partners and friends. That blend of heart and grit, combined with her ongoing work in the NHS, makes her books feel rooted in lived experience rather than just fantasy.