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Get Carter
Tough guy Jack Carter’s underworld odyssey seeking answers for his brother’s death
Jack Carter is the muscle for Gerald and Les Fletcher, two businessmen in London, who deal in all the less noble enterprises of any and all cities. Carter’s brother Frank in their hometown of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, 50 miles south west of Leeds, has just died in a car accident and Jack has come home to take care of Frank’s funeral and to make arrangements for Frank’s daughter Doreen.
But, from the first word of Frank’s death Jack is certain that it was not an accident. Jack is sure that someone in Doncaster killed Frank and made it look accidental. To solve the mystery, Jack confronts his own troubling relationship with his brother and is confounded by Frank’s teenage daughter Doreen, who appears to have grown up well beyond her 15 chronological years.
From the beginning of the book, the reader realizes that Jack Carter is a man living on the edge. He is planning to run away with Gerald’s wife Audrey to a new boss named Stein, in Johannesburg, South Africa 3000 miles away from Gerald and Les. However, for now, he’s looking for his brother’s killer. In the process, Carter leads the reader through the underside of Doncaster. "Too big for a town, too small for a city," author Ted Lewis, says of the place.
Carter is not a man to be underestimated. This excerpt from the book illustrates why. "Con had both hands in his pockets. One on the shooter and one on the knife. I stopped the car and pulled the hand brake on. Then I flashed my hand between Con’s legs and grabbed his balls and squeezed hard.
"Con opened his mouth to screen but before any sound could come out I pulled his hat over his face and stuffed as much of it as I could into his mouth. I let go of his balls and gave him one in the throat. He began to choke so I hit him on the temple with my elbow and pulled the hat out of his mouth. He fell forward and cracked his forehead on the dashboard. With a little bit of assistance from myself."
Get Carter leads the reader through a harsh landscape of prostitution and pornography with turf lords that control the business within geographic regions. Carter, working for a underworld lord outside of Doncaster is the trespasser entering a world where the local lord deals with intruders brutally.
"Well, what happened, you see, was that some of our coloured friends had started a cheap whorehouse down Clarendon Street," Keith, a friend of Carter’s brother, says describing the death of five Pakistanis who attempted to compete with the local lord. "The novelty attracted a lot of customers. Too many. They decided to open up additional premises. That was just before the party on the pavement. Everybody thought it was just what it look like; too much ale. But what happened was that there was half dozen Pakistanis from the whorehouse against half a dozen Pakistanis from various properties in Jackson Street and Voltaire Road and Linden Street. Properties owned by a certain person… Anyway, you’ll gather that after that nobody else bothered to try and open up in competition."
The book, first published as Jack’s Return Home, was made into a movie that became the cult film Get Carter. Michael Caine starred as Carter. Ted Lewis, the author of nine books, was also an animation specialist, best known for the Beatles’ movie Yellow Submarine. Born in 1940, he died in 1982, at a rather young age.
The book is fast paced and a compelling read.
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