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1977 - the year the two sevens clash - the year of punk - the year of the Yorkshire Ripper and the Silver Jubilee No more heroes in 1977, just an urban wasteland where bad men do bad things and get away with them again and again and again. If you thought fiction couldn't get darker then David Peace's extraordinary debut, 1974, then think again. 1977, the second part of his Yorkshire Quartet is one long noir nightmare. Its heroes - the half-way decent copper Bob Fraser and the burnt-out feral hack Jack Whitehead - would be considered villains in most people's books. Fraser and Whitehead have one thing in common though, they're both desperate men dangerously in love with Chapeltown whores. And as the summer moves remorselessly towards the bonfires of Jubilee Night, the killings accelerate and it seems as if Fraser and Whitehead are the only men who suspect or care that there may be more than one killer at large. Out of the horror of true crime David Peace has fashioned a work of terrible beauty. Like James Ellroy before him, David Peace tells us the true and fearsome secret history of our times.… (more)
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The first book in the series is narrated by a novice crime reporter, and concerned the solving of a series of child murders, some of which occurred several years before 1974, when the book is set. It is grim and bleak, and about terrible people doing terrible things. In this book, we are introduced to some of the corrupt policemen who are the core of this series.
Nineteen Seventy-seven is narrated by Jack Whitehead, a senior crime reporter who had made an appearance in the first book as the arrogant, wisecracking rival of the narrator in the first book. Now that we are in his mind, we can see that he is a psychological wreck, with self-induced demons haunting him.
Whitehead's sections alternate with sections narrated by Bobby Fraser, a policeman who made a brief but important appearance in the first book. In that book, he was a rookie, and was ethical with a sense of fair play. Three years later, he is unrecognizable--corrupt and violent.
In Nineteen Seventy-seven the Ripper murders begin, but are not solved. As in Nineteen Seventy-four, the narrative flows freely back and forth in time, and is for the most part in stream of consciousness. It is again a novel without a hero, full of terrible people.
In Nineteen Eighty the murders continue, and we meet the first character we can like. Peter Hunter, an investigator from another district, is sent to review the Ripper investigation to determine whether the failure to solve the case is due to incompetence, or to some clue that has been overlooked. Again the narrative travels loosely back and forth in time, and more and more of the rampant police corruption becomes known to the reader.
Each of these first three novels ends with a huge bang, although we sometimes are not entirely sure what actually happened. It is not until the ensuing book that we are entirely aware of what happened, and the ramifications it has for the characters and the investigation.
Nineteen Eight-three is narrated from the pov of three characters. John Piggot, a sleazy solicitor who is trying to prove that the man convicted of the child murders in the first book was framed, narrates his sections in the first person. BJ, a "rent boy" who has made appearances in the first three novels, narrates his sections, referring to himself in the second person. The final sections are told from the point of view of a corrupt police official.
Nineteen Eight-three winds and unwinds, not unlike a symphonic exposition, all the threads begun in the first novel. It shifts back and forth in time over nearly twenty years. As in the first three novels, it also ends with a bang, and again we are not quite sure of all of the ramifications. Unfortunately, there will be no succeeding books to enlighten us.
These four novels are amazing. They are not, however, for everyone. There are obscenties on every page. Brutality and violence abound, sometimes graphicly described. Everyone is corrupt. The novels are bleak, gritty, cynical and despairing. If this description doesn't bother you, I highly recommend these books. Read as one, they are a masterpiece.
1974
1977
1980
1983
A recent reviewer of Peace's book "Occupied City" described it as "unreadable". I bought it and before I started was somewhat encouraged by a much more positive review by a Jake Kerridge. But even that ended with ".......You will occasionally feel
I bought the Red Riding quartet for a song in the Borders sale the last day before it closed for good. The basic subject seemed much more approachable — after all dammit they'd just been made into a TV mini-series. After struggling through I can report that they are also unreadable which is probably why they were still in the sale on the last day, most Borders customers being more savvy about choosing reading material than me. They are set mostly in Yorkshire but Manchester and Preston also appear. Some of the characters are common to all the books but corrupt coppers take the leading parts. There are references to real events such as the hunt for the "Yorkshire Ripper" (Peter Sutcliffe in real life) and perhaps people better informed about the place and the times could pick out more. But it is a work of fiction and even it was written in a more readable style it would be a mistake to try to make the links. Don't buy or even borrow.
Nineteen Seventy-Four
Nineteen Seventy-Seven
Nineteen Eighty
Nineteen Eighty Three
I read them as a challenge - based on camaraderie with coworkers.
Once I started the series, didn't especially want to wimp out, and then was compelled to read thru to the
I'm not faulting the author - it was a unique and compelling writing style and twisted plot with characters jumping back and forth between books.
I did it. I read them all. I think they got weirder and more difficult as they went along, but if you're looking for some intense, darkly challenging books - have at it.
Read in 2011.
The second installment in David Peace's Red Riding Quartet is as violent and relentless as the first. This is Noir in its very darkest and bleakest incarnation. The Yorkshire of Peace's imagination is devoid of hope or even basic human decency, where Blacks and Gypsies are the targets of police brutality as a matter of course and where women are victimized with callous disregard. Whitehead and Fraser have reasons for pursuing their search for the killer, but they have their own demons to fight, which might just prove more formidable than the corrupt and venal system they operate within.
One needs a strong stomach to read this series, but they are compelling; the violence is graphic but it never feels gratuitous. After reading the first book in the series, Nineteen Seventy-Four, I rushed right out to get a copy of [Nineteen Seventy-Seven], which I then eyed distrustfully for several months before reading. I'll be doing the same with Nineteen Eighty.