An armed robber turned bestselling crime writer has released her fifth novel – and says she is already writing her sixth.
Linda Calvey, a former East End villain, now lives in south Essex and makes her living as an author, lauded by fans including Martina Cole and Kimberley Chambers.
Her new novel, Charity, is the last of a trilogy based on the troubled lives of fellow inmates she met in prison.
Calvey, now 78, led a robbery gang in the 1980s which targeted post offices and security vans, netting an estimated £1million.
She described it last year as her “biggest regret”.
Calvey turned to crime to avenge the death of her husband Mickey after a police officer shot him in the back.
But her crime spree ended in 1986 when she was jailed for seven years.
In 1991 she was handed a further 18 years after being convicted of murdering her new partner, Brink’s-Mat gold robber Ronnie Cook.
She has always maintained her innocence and, in recent years, passed a lie detector test.
She served time alongside Myra Hindley and Rose West before her eventual release in 2008.
Catch up:
The Black Widow: How Britain's worst female gangster settled down in south Essex
Dubbed the Black Widow by the tabloids, she used it as the title of her hit 2019 memoir.
She has since released a second biographical work, Life Inside, and five novels.
Her latest three – Faith, Hope and Charity – chart the lives of a fictional east London family across four decades.
Charity, set amid the build-up to the London 2012 Olympics, is published by Hachette UK.
“It’s a gangland story,” Calvey said. “Three daughters seek retribution against the man that disfigured their mother.
“Ideally, people would read the whole trilogy, but you could read this one as a standalone and it would make sense.”
It was released on July 30, with a book launch held at The Rodings Mediterranean Grill and Bar in Romford on Sunday (August 9).
It has a five-star average reader rating on both Amazon and GoodReads.
Calvey said she was already writing her sixth novel, The Toy Shop, again based on real-life villains from her past.
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