Ted Lewis is probably best known for his 1970 novel Jack’s Return Home and/or its subsequent film versions – Get Carter (1971) starring Michael Caine, Hit Man starring Bernie Casey (1972), and Get Carter (2000) starring Sylvester Stallone. GBH was Lewis’ final novel – published in 1980- and it’s pretty damned fantastic. The book’s title…
Category: London
Recommended Read: Slow Horses by Mick Herron
River Cartwright’s short career in the Intelligence Service is almost down the Swanee due to a major screw up on his part. Luckily for him, his grandfather is a bit of a big shot in the Service so he is instead banished to the purgatory of Slough House – home to the Service’s flotsam and…
Recommended Read: The Not Knowing by Cathi Unsworth
Published in 2005, Cathi Unsworth’s The Not Knowing was her first novel. It is set in London in the early ’90s and what a great slice of London life it is. Diane Kemp is a journalist working for the trendy Lux magazine. When an uber-hip British film director goes missing she is dragged into the…
Last Year’s Man Rides Again!
For those of you that enjoyed my book LAST YEAR’S MAN, the protagonist Tommy Bennett is back. The Tommy Bennett yarn ‘Baby’s Got A Gun‘ – title filched from The Only Ones – is included in the anthology A TIME FOR VIOLENCE: STORIES WITH AN EDGE. The anthology is published by CLOSE TO THE…
Top Telly: Out
In the 1978 TV series OUT, poker-faced Tom Bell plays Frank Ross, a gangster who is sent to prison for robbery after someone grasses him up. Eight years later, Ross leaves the slammer and is confronted with a London that has changed and people that have changed. Instead of stitching back together his relationships, however,…
Recommended Read: Dread: The Art Of Serial Killing by Mark Ramsden
Dickens obsessive Mr. Madden is a spy whose mission is to infiltrate the right wing group England Awake! He is also a serial killer known as The Chavkiller who is out to revenge his dead wife. Dread: The Art Of Serial Killing by Mark Ramsden is violent, gripping, clever, touching and very, very funny. The…
No One Is Innocent at Retreats From Oblivion.
Noir Con‘s online journal –Retreats From Oblivion– have published a slice of my Brit Grit called No One Is Innocent. ‘Marjorie shuffled through the door to the snug and switched on the lights. She pressed a button and the dusty Wurlitzer jukebox burst to life. Jane Morgan belted out ‘The Day The Rains Came.’ In…
Recommended Read: The Glass House by Richard Godwin
Troubled rich kids Michael and Abby are kidnapped and their parents are sent bizarre films of them trapped in glass cages. Michael’s horrified parents contact a private detective, Earl Blake, to help them get their children back but things soon spiral out of control. Richard Godwin’s The Glass House is a violent and gripping London…
Henry Brock Reviews Cold London Blues
And says: ‘ 5 out of 5 stars London is a violent violent town February 21, 2018 There are so many gems in Paul D. Brazill’s “Cold London Blues” that this review could contain nothing but a bulleted list. If I did that, surely it would be enough to convince you that you need to read this…
Recommended Read: This Is How It Ends by Eva Dolan
When property developers buy a London tower block and start to force people out of their homes, Ella and Molly start a protest campaign . But one night, Molly gets a phone call from Ella that throws both of their lives out of kilter. Eva Dolan’s This Is How It Ends is a gripping, rich, …
