Get Carter

Famously adapted into the iconic film starring Michael Caine, Get Carter—originally published as Jack’s Return Home—ranks among the most canonical of crime novels. With a special Foreword by Mike Hodges, director of Get Carter It’s a rainy night in the mill town of Scunthorpe when a London fixer named Jack Carter steps off a northbound train. He’s left the neon lights and mod lifestyle of Soho behind to come north to his hometown for a funeral—his brother Frank’s. Frank was very drunk when he drove his car off a cliff and that doesn’t sit well with Jack. Mild-mannered Frank never touched the stuff. Jack and Frank didn’t exactly like one another. They hadn’t spoken in years and Jack is far from the sentimental type. So it takes more than a few people by surprise when Jack starts plying his trade in order to get to the bottom of his brother’s death. Then again, Frank’s last name was Carter, and that’s Jack’s name too. Sometimes that’s enough. Set in the late 1960s amidst the smokestacks and hardcases of the industrial north of England, Get Carter redefined British crime fiction and cinema alike. Along with the other two novels in the Jack Carter Trilogy, it is one of the most important crime novels of all time.

"Get Carter" is now widely acknowledged as the finest British gangster film of all time. Released in 1971, the film fell out of fashion until the cultural changes of the 1990s gave a new currency to its pessimistic vision of a doomed male within a decaying social order. Before its re-release in 1999, Mike Hodges' fusion of the crime genre with social realism received surprisingly little critical attention. Steve Chibnall's book now gives "Get Carter" the consideration it demands. With the co-operation of Hodges and access to rare documents, including an early draft of the script, Chibnall places the film in its social context, describes its making, discusses its characteristics, scene by scene, and charts its changing status since the 1970s.

The story of Ted Lewis carries historical and cultural resonances for our own troubled times Ted Lewis is one of the most important writers you've never heard of. Born in Manchester in 1940, he grew up in the tough environs of post-war Humberside, attending Hull College of Arts and Crafts before heading for London. His life described a cycle of obscurity to glamour and back to obscurity, followed by death at only 42. He sampled the bright temptations of sixties London while working in advertising, TV and films and he encountered excitement and danger in Soho drinking dens, rubbing shoulders with the 'East End boys' in gangland haunts. He wrote for Z Cars and had some nine books published. Alas, unable to repeat the commercial success of Get Carter, Lewis's life fell apart, his marriage ended and he returned to Humberside and an all too early demise. Getting Carter is a meticulously researched and riveting account of the career of a doomed genius. Long-time admirer Nick Triplow has fashioned a thorough, sympathetic and unsparing narrative. Required reading for noirists, this book will enthral and move anyone who finds irresistible the old cocktail of rags to riches to rags.

This is an insider's fascinating look at the mysterious world of politics, rock and roll and intelligence from the "dude who gets things done."

"has an opinion on just about everything--from the inside scoop on plastic surgery to the importance of etiquette and grooming, from the value of the family to the courage to be yourself. This book is one long conversation that you never want to end. Photos throughout.

With an Introduction by Max Allan Collins The author of Get Carter returns to his greatest invention, a smooth-operating hardcase named Jack Carter, who is about to burn a city down in order to silence an informant London. The late 1960s. It's Christmastime and Jack Carter is the top man in a crime syndicate headed by two brothers, Gerald and Les Fletcher. He’s also a worried man. The fact that he’s sleeping with Gerald’s wife, Audrey, and that they plan on someday running away together with a lot of the brothers’ money, doesn’t have Jack concerned. Instead it’s an informant—one of his own men—that has him losing sleep. The grass has enough knowledge about the firm to not only bring down Gerald and Les but Jack as well. Jack doesn’t like his name in the mouth of that sort. In Jack Carter’s Law Ted Lewis returned to the character that launched his career and once again delivered a hardboiled masterpiece. Jack Carter is the ideal tour guide to a bygone London underworld. In his quest to dismantle the opposition, he peels back the veneer of English society and offers a hard look at a gritty world of pool halls, strip clubs and the red lights of Soho nightlife.

With an Afterword by Nick Triplow Published in North America for the first time—the final novel featuring Jack Carter (Get Carter, Jack Carter’s Law) has London’s slickest operator journeying to a Spanish villa to protect a wise-cracking Italian-American mobster. Jack Carter is not thrilled when his frustratingly unprofessional employers—London mob kingpins Gerald and Les Fletcher—force him to take a vacation. Jack doesn’t like leaving the business in other people’s hands, but the company villa in Spain promises sunshine and some time to plot his next move. Jack soon finds he is on anything but a vacation. The villa is already inhabited by a cowardly house steward and a knuckle-dragging American gangster. Jack has apparently been sent to protect the American, who has turned informant. There are few things that Jack Carter hates more than surprises. Informants being chief among them.

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