Ruthless Books in Order

Set largely in London from the 1960s through the 1990s, the Ruthless books follow the rise and fallout of the Vincent crime family. The trilogy shows what happens when a girl born into gangland power is pushed out for her own safety and then fights her way back in on her own terms.

The story begins in Ruthless with Dolly Vincent, daughter of an East End gangster and target of a vicious rival known as Mad Mick. To keep her alive, her family sends her away and gives her a different life. She grows up clever, driven and far from the streets that shaped her, eventually qualifying as a barrister.

That distance doesn’t last. When Dolly defends a young Italian man in court, she stumbles across a dangerous secret involving a high‑ranking judge. What starts as a legal case turns into torture, betrayal and a desperate escape to New York. Only the Vincents know where she has gone, but even they don’t know the whole truth about who she has become.

Ruby's Palace shifts the focus to the next generation. The Vincent nightclubs are booming across London, and Dolly’s relatives are expanding their empire. A travelling family, the O’Connells, spot an opportunity and plot to take the Palaces for themselves, ignoring grim rumours about a previous family who crossed the Vincents and vanished. At the centre sits Ruby Vincent, fifteen years old, sharp‑eyed and stubborn, who turns her back on the family to hunt down the truth behind those stories.

By Raw Justice, the past has caught up with everyone. A member of the Vincent clan is murdered, and the only lead points toward the Ruthers, a family neck‑deep in drugs and prostitution. Dolly returns to England to do what she does best: unpick lies, follow money and expose the hidden power structures that keep certain men untouchable. Her search takes her into the darker corners of the judiciary and a so‑called gentlemen’s club whose influence reaches far beyond the East End.

Throughout the trilogy you can expect brutal scores to be settled, but the books are as much about family as they are about violence. Mothers, daughters, aunts and nieces hold this world together, even as they argue, drift apart and circle back to each other. The result is a gangland saga that blends courtroom tension, street‑level politics and long‑running feuds, best read in order to feel the full weight of what the Vincents gain and lose over time.