Book You May Have Missed (#9)

Jack’s Return Home (aka Get Carter) by Ted Lewis  (1970)

                                   Original cover          Post film reprint

The book tells the gritty and violent story of London gangster Jack Carter’s return to his hometown of Scunthorpe, in North Lincolnshire, to investigate his brother’s suspicious death. His presence upsets the local baddies who do all they can to convince him to go back down South. If the plot sounds familiar you have probably seen the superb Michael Caine film ‘Get Carter’, even so, the book, from which the film was adapted, is well worth reading.

Jazz pianist and author Ted Lewis was born in Manchester in 1940 and wrote 8 novels between 1965 and his early death in 1982. As the titles suggest, three of them (‘Jack’s Return Home’, ‘Jack Carter’s Law’ and ‘Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon’) feature the same ‘hero’. I have only read the first and have been put off reading the other two by poor reviews.

Fun Fact: An awful American film version of the book made in 2000 and starring Silvester Stallone lost $19million dollars at the box-office.