Ted G. Lewis Knihy

In London, George Fowler heads a lucrative criminal syndicate that specializes in illegal pornography. Fowler is king, with a beautiful woman at his side and a swanky penthouse office, but his world is in jeopardy. Someone is undermining his empire from within, and Fowler becomes increasingly ruthless in his pursuit of the unknown traitor, trusting an ever smaller set of advisers. Juxtaposed with the terror and violence of Fowler's last days in London is the flash-forward narrative of his hideout bunker in a tiny English beach town, where he skulks during the off-season, trying to salvage his fallen empire. Just as it seems possible for Fowler to rise again, another trigger may cause his total, irreparable unravelling.

Two men share a common history. Growing up together in the small town of Barton-Upon-Humber in Lincolnshire, England, Peter Knott is everything that Brian Plender wishes he were. Knott is suave, good-looking, an exemplary student and popular. The friendship they maintain is as important to Plender as it is forgettable to Knott, and eventually leads to a lasting humiliation for Brian. Years later Brian Plender is a dangerous man; a private investigator who specialises in extortion, blackmail, and intimidation. Knott meanwhile is a family man adrift, beholden to his wife for money. When, at a bar he uses to set up marks, Plender spots Knott with a girl way too young to be his wife he decides to follow the pair and see what happens. What follows is an edge-of-your-seat trip into a nightmare story that manages to be both incredibly creepy and eerily profound.

The author of Get Carter returns to his greatest invention, a smooth-operating hardcase named Jack Carter, who is about to burn a city down in order to silence an informant......