Ted Lewis was a British crime fiction pioneer.

His skill was the creation of a downbeat fusion between the hardboiled American school and his own brand of taut, lyrical, social-realist storytelling.

When it worked, Lewis was a master, exploring new territories for noir fiction with an unflinching mix of tawdry underworld violence and an unerring eye for detail.

In the spirit of Chandler and Thompson, Lewis presented an unsparing vision of society’s underclass.

For Get Carter, originally published as Jack’s Return Home, the book (and film) that made his name, he sent Jack Carter home to the terraced backstreets and boarding houses of Scunthorpe for a steel town High Noon, shabby and peripheral under grey skies.

Never shy of rifling his own back pages for stories, the darker Lewis’s writing became, the closer the convergence of truth and fiction.

Before his death at the age of 42 in 1982, Lewis’s cast of sadistic, guilt-ridden, and violent characters had appeared in seven crime/noir novels and two semi-autobiographical novels, concluding with GBH (1980), a book described by Derek Raymond as clearing ‘a road straight through the black jungle’.

Join Lewis’s biographer, Nick Triplow, in conversation with acclaimed crime/noir writers David Peace, Cathi Unsworth, and Martyn Waites, as they look at Lewis’s writing, his significance in their own work, and his continuing influence in the evolution of noir fiction in the UK.

📷Cathi Unsworth is the author of six pop-cultural noir novels, including That Old Black Magic and the co-author of Defying Gravity, the life and times of punk icon Jordan.

📷As a journalist she has contributed to Fortean Times, The Guardian and Mojo and she has given many talks and walks for The Sohemian Society, The London Fortean Society, The Barbican Centre and The Bishopsgate Institute. She teaches creative fiction for Curtis Brown Creative and Arvon Foundation, and lives and works in Ladbroke Grove, London. For more go to cathiunsworth.co.uk

📷David Peace - named in 2003 as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists - was born and brought up in Yorkshire. He is the author of the Red Riding Quartet (Nineteen Seventy Four, Nineteen Seventy Seven, Nineteen Eighty and Nineteen Eighty Three) which has been adapted into a three part Channel 4 series that aired in Spring 2009, GB84 which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Award, and The Damned Utd, the film version of which (adapted by Peter Morgan and starring Michael Sheen) was released in Spring 2009.

📷Tokyo Year Zero, the first part of his acclaimed Tokyo Trilogy, was published in 2007, and the second part, Occupied City, in 2009. His new book and third in the series, Tokyo Redux will be published in 2021

'David Peace writes the boldest and most original British fiction of his generation.' - Richard Lloyd Parry, New York Times

📷Martyn Waites was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He trained at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama and worked as an actor for many years before becoming a writer. He has been nominated for every major British crime fiction award and won the 2014 Grand Prix du Roman Noir Award for his novel, Born Under Punches.

📷His latest book is The Sinner and he has also enjoyed international commercial success with eight novels written under the name Tania Carver and also writes Doctor Who audio adventures for Big Finish.

'One of the very best crime writers we have' - Mark Billingham

Nick Triplow is the author of the acclaimed biography of British crime fiction pioneer, Ted Lewis, Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir – longlisted for the HRF Keating Award and the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction, the South London crime novel, Frank’s Wild Years, and the social history books Family Ties, The Women They Left Behind,  DistantWater, and Pattie Slappers.

Nick studied English, Writing and Publishing at Middlesex University and gained a Masters in Creative Writing from Sheffield Hallam University. A co-director of Hull Noir Crime Fiction Festival, originally from London, Nick now lives in Barton upon Humber.