Never Go Back (An Annie Carter Novel) by Jessie Keane

 

Never Go Back (An Annie Carter novel) by Jessie Keane.

Published 2nd February 2023 by Hodder and Stoughton.

From the cover of the book:

Gangster Max Carter and his ex-wife Annie Carter are leading separate lives in separate countries: past hurts and broken promises cannot be resolved. But then a summons to Majorca and a tragic death makes Max question all that has happened to him over many years.

He had two brothers - both are now dead. His closest friend has been found hanging from a London bridge. As the police wrestle with a seemingly unsolvable case, Max is forced to revisit his painful past to find answers to a mystery that seems to make no sense at all. Who is targeting his family and why?

Annie Carter is at a crossroads in life. She has a luxurious lifestyle but no one to share it with, and Max clearly thinks she is in danger too. Her daughter, Layla, has left her mafia lover Alberto Barolli and is back in London, stumbling into the police investigation and making waves. You should never go back, so the old saying goes. But then, the Carter women don't follow the rules, they make them.

And when the truth of what's been happening is finally revealed, will the Carter family stand together - or will it finish them for good?

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Gang boss Max Carter and his ex-wife Annie are living separate lives, but secrets from the past are about to drag them back together. When Max discovers the truth behind a tragic death in Majorca, he realises that there may be a dangerous mystery figure at play in the fateful events that have torn his family apart. Both his brothers are dead, but he still has good men around him in London, and now might be a good time to gather his ex-wife and daughter into the fold to protect them from harm.

Annie is living a comfortable life in America, but she is lonely. Reluctantly she heads back to London for an uncomfortable reunion with Max, soon followed by their troubled daughter Layla. It is not long before Max's suspicions are proved to be true, and even if they have no idea who lies behind the sinister threat, they are not going to stand back and let the police handle an investigation on their turf.

Old sins will out. Will the Carter family survive the fall-out?

Never Go Back forms something of a companion piece to the Annie Carter series, as it spans the history of the Carter clan from the 1950s onwards, charting the rise to power of Max and his family to dizzy heights that rivalled the Krays and the Richardsons.

The story begins with Max's mother Queenie, in an intriguing plot line that holds this story together. The consequences of Queenie's actions ripple through time, raining tragedy on the Carter clan, and it is this previously untold story that plays out in the foreground of all that has befallen them - burgeoning into a new direction for the Carters as the twisty threads collide in an exciting climax.

As a new comer to this series, there was much to catch-up on, because this book covers a lot of gangland ground, but Keane fills in just enough detail to keep you up to date with the broad strokes of the relationship between Max and Annie, the significant events that brought them together and then parted them, and the fierce rivalry between the Caters and the Delaneys that has built to boiling point over the years. I loved how Keane delves right back in time to the high days of the 1950s when to rub shoulders with gangsters brought a certain cachet, and she name drops the celebrities who were closely associated with the scene - both on the right side of the law, and those most definitely well beyond it.

Keane builds nicely on this groundwork to echo the changes in gang culture over time. She excels in ramping up the tension, and pulling you along with the promise of reckonings to come. There is just the right level of gritty revenge-filled violence to keep the pace of the story going beautifully, coupled with the human interest of domestic drama. I really enjoyed how she plays skillfully with the push and pull of characters intimately tied to one another with a lot of baggage to work through. Keane weaves themes of family ties, betrayal, revenge, and divided loyalties throughout to pack a real emotional punch amongst all the action, and there is a lovely poignant kick to the conclusion of the story that I was not expecting. There are some glorious female characters to get behind here too.

Having had a taste of the Carters, I am now hungry for more, and will be going back to delve into the Annie Carter series in full in the not too distant future! 

Never Go Back is available to buy now is hard cover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Hodder and Stoughton for ending me a hard cover copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Ed Public Relations for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Dubbed 'Queen of the Underworld', Jessie Keane is of Romany gypsy stock. She was born rich, in the back of her gran's barrel top wagon, and her family thrived until their firm crashed into bankruptcy and became poor. Her father died when she was a teenager and she fled to London to escape grim reality, finding there a lifelong fascination with the criminal underworld and the teeming life of the city.

Twice divorced and living in a freezing council flat, she decided to pursue her childhood aim to become a writer. She sold her wedding dress to buy a typewriter and penned her first Annie Carter book, Dirty Game.

This was followed by five more Annie Carter books, all Sunday Times bestsellers, then Ruby Darke arrived in Nameless, Lawless and The Edge. Jessie's stand-alone novels include Jail Bird, The Make, Dangerous, Fearless, The Knock and The Manor.