Getting Carter - Nick Triplow

 

I've written before about Ted Lewis - see me reviews of GBH and Plender, below - but this is the book that led to those books being republished as No Exit titles.  That alone warrants bonus points to Nick Triplow, who also introduced the aforementioned.  To save time scrolling, I was staggered by the brilliance of GBH, less so by Plender.

This critical biography of the forgotten author falls somewhere between the two.  It is absolutely thorough on the life, but is shackled by the fact that Lewis was a pretty appalling person who had talent in abundance but drank it all away.  Far more interesting for me is Triplow's recreation of Hull and Humberside during Lewis's two periods of residence.  I was resident there between times and Triplow's account rings pitch perfect to me.

I also thoroughly enjoyed his assessments of the books and the field of pre-Lewis British noir crime fiction.  In summary then, a significant book which adds additional depth to the novels.  It's just a shame about Lewis himself. 

Plender - Ted Lewis

 

I loved Ted Lewis's GBH, and obviously love the movie of his Get Carter, but Plender not so much.  It is very much in the style of GBH, alternating chapters allowing first person narrative from each of the main characters, and set in Humberside when such a county existed in the late Seventies - but it is nowhere near as dark and nowhere near dark enough.

The plot hinges on a couple of coincidences, which is never a good place to start.  It is of course conceivable that two schoolfellows from the Lincolnshire side might meet up again twenty years later in Hull.  It is by no means beyond the realm of possibility that one (Plender) might have become a dodgy private investigator, the other (Knott) a photographer for mail order catalogues.  But that they should meet in a transvestite bar, when neither of them is a cross-dresser, on the very night that one of them accidentally brings about the death of a young woman ... well, that's stretching credibility a bit too far.

The final coincidence I didn't see coming and it rather took me by surprise when it did.  It is no more believable than the others but it allowed the story to spiral into darkness at last.  As such, I wish it had done so a lot sooner.  All in all, I'm afraid it reminded me of not-very-good TV drama of the period - A Bouquet of Barbed Wire, and the like.

GBH - Ted Lewis

 

Ted Lewis (1940-82) is the missing master of British crime fiction.  He was born in Manchester, brought up and died (alcohol-related) in Humberside.  He wrote the novel that became the movie Get Carter before he was 30.  I was in Humberside for much of the Seventies.  I am a big fan of Get Carter.  Indeed, I first saw it in the Cecil cinema in Hull.  So how come I had never heard of Lewis until Amazon offered me the ebook?

Now, having read his final work - considered by many to be his masterpiece - I am amazed that Lewis and his work are not a subject of everyday conversation, at least among crime fans.  He didn't invent British noir - let's not forget the great James Hadley Chase, who was very much the British version of James M Cain - but he certainly brought it up to date and turned it very dark indeed.  He is absolutely a pioneer of what we now regard as noir.  And GBH is just about as dark as these things ever get.

George Fowler is a London gangster who has made a very considerable fortune from blue movies.  His gangland rivals, the Shepherdson brothers, have decided to declare war.  The text consists of very short chapters switching between two locations, the Smoke and the Sea, which means the out-of-season seaside resort of Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire, where Fowler is hiding out under an assumed name.  Cleverly, Lewis uses present tense for Mablethorpe, past tense for London.  All bar the last couple of chapters are first person narration by Fowler, which means we are inside his head the whole time, and inside his head is not a pleasant place to be.  He is drinking heavily and may be losing his grip on reality.  Who, for example, is Lesley, the girl who turns up everywhere in Mablethorpe and reminds Fowler of ... what?  Where is Jean, Fowler's wife, who enthusiastically joined in all his activities, from orgies to murder?

Reading GBH was a revelation.  How can a writer this good be forgotten?  I admit, the common as muck name doesn't help, but he is a king compared to others now making a decent living out of the genre.  I must read more - the original Get Carter (originally called Jack's Return Home) for sure, and there's also the follow-up, intriguingly called Plender, described here as "a story of murder, pornography, blackmail and retribution set in the dockside streets of Hull and Humberside."  Oh yes, right up my street.