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,' which was also adapted into the popular film starring Michael Caine. Several of his novels are deemed classics of the British crime genre, and it's easy to see why.'GBH' (stands for Grevious Bodily Harm) is narrated by its anti-hero, George Fowler, currently living in anonymous exile on the coast of England after surviving an apparent coup attempt - Fowler was until recently the head of a highly lucrative (and lethal) pornography empire that sold everything, up to and including snuff films. The novel gives us two narratives - the present day as Fowler tries to recover from his recent losses (this narrative is called 'The Sea'), and the undefined-but-recent-past where Fowler was still on top (this strand is called 'The Smoke'). While on top, Fowler fought and bought friends and enemies, as needed, including reaching a lucrative arrangement with the upper management of The Law. Still, in Fowler's world one can never sleep too soundly, and in The Smoke Fowler confronts the hard truth that one of his inner circle is less than 100% loyal.That's the kind of disloyalty Fowler cannot abide, and he's the kind of man who uses pain as a tool - it's not personal, even has he has you tied up to hot electrical wires. In The Sea, Fowler struggles to cope with the staggering losses he incurred in The Smoke, but he's living a quiet life of mourning and self-reflection. That is, until a mysterious woman arrives, dropping clues that war that raged in The Smoke may still claim Fowler as a casualty.The Sea and The Smoke gradually converge as Fowler pieces together clues and ties the strands together. But paranoia, grief, and madness may have also taken more than a bit out of Fowler. Back in The Smoke, Fowler had trusted allies to feed him information and help him analyze the situation, but in The Sea he is painfully alone. Is he drawing the right conclusions now that he's flying solo? His life may well hang in the balance.Lewis writes with a laser-like focus - no words are wasted. There is a lot of British period slang that is a bit difficult to translate at first, but eventually this modern American reader got the hang of it and reveled in it. This is dark, gritty stuff - very much akin to James Ellroy's darker stories . . . in other words, don't get this book for your young teenager even if he or she has read "The Maltese Falcon." It took me too long to discover Mr. Lewis - I'll remedy that by reading each of his books soon.
Lewis is certainly best known for writing the novel that was made into the iconic Michael Caine film Get Carter (and, less well known, the blaxploitation film Hit Man). Apparently a very lonely and depressive person, he drank himself into the grave at a very young age, and it's hard not to see evidence of those demons in this, his final book. Brought back into print some 35 years after its initial publication, it's stiff stuff.The story revolves around a successful London gangster whose empire has just collapsed due to betrayal from within. The book opens with him hiding out in his beachfront safe house on the Lincolnshire coast about midway between Grimsby and Skegness. We then flash back to a few weeks or months previously, when his enterprise began to unravel. The book alternates between brief chapters titled "The Sea" (set in the present) and "The Smoke" (what went down in London). It's made clear that something terrible happened to his wife in London, but the details that have driven him to drink aren't revealed until near the end."The Smoke" chapters unfold in a semi-procedural way, as he strives to figure out which of his henchmen is the traitor, and whether or not a rival gang is involved. Meanwhile, "The Sea" chapters show a man going stir-crazy and slowly off the rails. Each set carries its own tension, and the writing is crisp and purposeful throughout, with crackling dialogue. Central to the story are the pornographic (and snuff) films the gangster trades in (and producers), which serve as his hobby, income source, and existential undoing. This is a page-turner, but not of the pleasurable variety. There is no one here to sympathize with, and one reads on with dread. Dark stuff.
What do You think about GBH (2015)?
this found after decades past author's death. ted lewis famous for hard living and hard books , you may have even seen the movie of this one Get Carter. pretty good noir with booze/guilt/paranoia mind bending....a king pen kills his way into a corner. that is all good. i gave this excellent book 'only' 3 stars because of the overabundance of characters and plot. maybe that's why he didnt publish it? didnt have time to finish it? reminded me a bit of cain's dialog and atmosphere The Moth and a bit of bruen and his stripped down, drug addledness Slidebut i like how nisbet does all this better: Old and Cold
—Tuck
Are there villains more squalid and vile than the narrator of GBH? Answer is there none. No, wait. The answer is none there. Dammit. None. None more squalid nor vile. A pornographer and snuff merchant who tortures and murders his way through his own gangland mob when threatened by rivals, a wife and sidekick nearly as bad as him, cops in his pocket and enemies under his heel. But something is going on and it's hard to put his exposed electric wires on it. We know it all goes wrong, though, becau
—Nigel
How could this book have been sitting around for the last thirty or forty years ?Between 1965 and 1980, Ted Lewis wrote nine novels, they had gritty, incendiary storytelling that would influence writers on both sides of the ocean. Some say he brought Noir to England.THIS IS NOIR fiction. The definition of Noir is - a genre of crime film or fiction characterized by cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity. In France Noir means "black", at least "dark" and this indeed falls into that crater. No warm and fuzzy here, no gentle home spun cozy.The story concerns a London gangster named George Fowler. Fowler runs a world wide Pornography ring. He is surrounded by killers, crooks, bent cops and crooked lawyers. It's not easy to be a porn barron. You can not trust anyone. We join Fowler in the present. We examine some of his past. We watch the timelines (past and present) merge as the kingpin looses his sanity and those around him.Amazingly well written and compulsive reading, Highly recommended.
—Karl
