Once again, I find myself 'discovering' a writer who had already earned legions of fans . . . 'GBH' is my first Ted Lewis book, but it will certainly not be my last. The late (Lewis passed on in 1982) great author wrote seven novels of hard-boiled British crime fiction, including 'Get Carter,' w...
Though not quite the classic that "Get Carter" is, Jack Carter's Law is a great read, and a more entertaining one than its predecessor. For obvious reasons, this book is a prequel to Ted Lewis's first Carter novel, following the London mafia fixer through a few very rough days in "The Big Smoke."...
A fascinating window in on life in a British maximum security prison, Billy Rags—by the author of Get Carter—is crime fiction at its best: lean, mean, and full of startling psychological depth. It’s the 1960s and Billy Cracken is a hard man to keep locked up. An austere and troubled childhood has...
A grey wet wind screamed up the estuary and into the city centre, rocked trolley buses and swept old cabbage leaves along the cobbled docksides. Dirty barges shifted surlily on the greasy swell. Windows of workmen’s cafés were blank with inside steam. Raindrops flicked spitefully into the faces o...
Inside the train it was close, the kind of closeness that makes your fingernails dirty even when all you’re doing is sitting there looking out of the blurring windows. Watching the dirty backs of houses scudding along under the half-light clouds. Just sitting and looking and not even fidgeting.I ...
If, of course, after all these years of my allowing them to lie fallow they’re still up to moving for themselves. On the other hand, there’s probably one or two self-lovers who imagine that flaking me could take them to the top of their profession. On the other hand again, if I were to do unto Ge...
And while this is happening, I’m on the brink of sinking myself into the spade’s oily warmth, my tip tickling on the black curls of her pubic hair. Her legs are doubled up and her knees slide upward rubbing against my shoulders as I prepare for re-entry. Then the phone rin...
On the screen two men were fighting each other. “I’ve always been honest with you. You always said to me that I must be honest with you, whatever happened.” Far down below us, an usherette was leaning against the rail of the balcony, chewing at the ...