Gangland Empire Series One is the first gangland fiction series written by Louise Maria, and it has gone on to become a bestseller. This first book in the series is based in South East London and is based around the Barker family.

It begins in the late seventies when Marie is a dissatisfied teenager who is jealous of her best friend Jan. Marie is a stunning blonde who can't understand why her plainer friend has been able to find a steady boyfriend when she can't. Jan's boyfriend is a young man named Gray , and Marie immediately sets her sights on Gray's best friend Chas. Unfortunately Chas is a playboy and has no intention of settling with her.

Jan encourages Marie to forget about him, and in an effort to help her do this she points out a handsome man that is looking her way when they are out at Diamonds nightclub. Little does Jan know that the man is Tel Barker a local gangland figure, and even worse he is the elder brother of Chas.

Gray and Chas are doormen at Diamonds and they are horrified when Tel turns up with his mates. He had been away serving a prison sentence for a couple of years, and they weren't aware he had been released. When he went away he entrusted them with keeping an eye on Lena the baby of the Barker family.

Lena Barker is a mouthy teenager who works at the car lot that Tel owns, and she is insistent that she doesn't need Gray and Chas overseeing her. Busy with their nightclub jobs the two of them leave her to it, and they are nowhere to be seen when she suffers a violent attack from a rival firm, which leaves her wheelchair bound.

Now that Tel is out of prison, both Gray and Chas are worried about what punishment Tel will have in store for them.

There is an instant attraction between Marie and Tel, and when she discovers that Tel is realted to Chas and is not happy with him at all, she sees her chance to get revenge on the man that has treated her so badly. She knows that Tel mustn't ever find out that she's had a relationship with his younger brother, but she is sure that Chas will be too scared to say a word.

When Tel asks Marie to marry him, she swiftly accepts, and organises a wedding that is on a much grander scale than her friend Jan's. For the first time since she became friends with Jan, she feels like she is the one who's got it all.

As the wife of a crime boss she distances herself from Jan, and this is the start of over two decades of animosity between the Foster family and the Barker family.

Marie changes to a cold and ruthless individual who is determined to be more than a trophy on her husband's arm. She has ambitions to become joint head of the Barker firm, and she encourages Tel to bring Gray and Chas onboard. This is not for any charitable reasons, as she knows that both men are unwilling to be involved in gangland business. However, when Tel makes them an offer they can't refuse, they become irretrievably caught up in the London underworld and right under the thumbs of Tel and Marie.

This is just the first indication that Marie is not the pretty and slightly insecure girl that everybody thought she was. It is just the beginning of her relentless rise to power.