Get Carter by Ted Lewis

Get Carter by Ted Lewis, 217 pages.

Ted Lewis originally published this as Jack's Return Home in 1970. The movie, Get Carter, starring Michael Caine was released the following year. Soho Crime has reprinted this book, as well as the other two in the series and has chosen to use the movie name for this novel (Lewis, according to the author info, died in 1982 at the age of 42, so presumably had no say in the title change).
Carter holds a position of some power and respect in a feared London crime organization. As this noirish book opens Carter is heading to his hometown in the north of England. It's an industrial town and it's grim and gritty. Carter is not really a character who believes in sharing unnecessary details with those around him (or with the reader).When he tells someone that he encounters that he works for Gerald and Les he expects to be taken seriously. The people he runs into in this book know what that means. They all inhabit the same bleak, immoral world of dilapidated bars, cheap strip clubs, and cut-rate gambling joints.
Carter's brother, Frank, was a different sort of person. Growing up, Frank and Jack were very close. Frank didn't play by the dirty rules that all the criminals he grew up with and around followed. He tried to live an honest sort of life and ended up hating his brother Jack. When Frank dies, apparently in a drunken car crash, Jack decides to look into it, despite warnings from Les and Gerald

Fans of the late crime fiction and of Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) will like this book, as will fans of Lee Child, at least those who don't mind a complete lack of conscience in a main character.
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