Product Description

If you thought fiction couldn't get darker than David Peace's extraordinary debut, Nineteen Seventy Four, then think again. Nineteen Seventy Seven, the second instalment of the ‘Red Riding Quartet’, is one long nightmare. Its heroes - the half decent copper Bob Fraser and the burnt-out 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 prostitutes. 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4489 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
"'Breathless, extravagant, ultra-violent' Independent on Sunday 'British crime fiction's most exciting new voice in decades' GQ 'Brilliant' The Times 'The pace is relentless, the style staccato-plus and the morality bleak and forlorn... Peace's voice is powerful and unique' Guardian 'Quite simply, this is the future of British crime fiction' Time Out 'A triumph of sustained narrative energy that reinvigorates the British crime novel' Daily Telegraph"

From the Back Cover
‘The finest work of literature I’ve read this year… extraordinary and original’ Time Out ‘Simply superb… Peace is a masterful storyteller, and 1977 is impossible to put down… a must-read’ Yorkshire Post ‘British crime fiction’s most exciting new voice in decades’ GQ The half-way decent copper Bob Fraser and the burnt-out hack Jack Whitehead – 1977’s heroes – 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 prostitutes. As the summer moves remorselessly towards the bonfires of Jubilee Night, the Ripper 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.

About the Author
David Peace grew up in Yorkshire in the ‘70’s and vividly remembers listening to the hoax tape of the Yorkshire Ripper on his way home from school. He was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2003. In 2007, he was named GQ Writer of the Year. He lives in Japan.

Customer Reviews

poor
As a fan of James Ellroy and a resident in Yorkshire I have just finished 1974 and 1977. They are very average. Whilst Ellroy's sparse, vernacular abrupt and at times hard to follow somehow creates a complete picture in your head of what is going on, Peace's work just seems to confuse. I got fed up trying to follow the 2nd rate poetic allusions and was glad as they were never truly revealed. At times gripping and an absorbing tale, but ultimately too many loose ends and people being haunted by characters(Only named, never given backstory) from the past for no real reason. Explanations when they come are proposterous leaving me having finished this book like someone has torn out half the pages from it! Very frustrating and very disappointing.
oh and very seedy. The recurring anal rapes through Peace's books to punish women are just cheap and nasty.

Northern noir for those who like their meat very rare
West Yorkshire. Silver Jubilee. Yorkshire Ripper. A bent copper. Drunken journalist. Whore lovers. Corruption. Mutilation. HATE. HATE.

Not an easy read, and not a comfortable one, but an absolutely compulsive, rivetting psychological/procedural noir novel with a rock-solid grasp of location. Everyone else says it so I suppose I'll have to - Peace writes in a style similar to James Ellroy (the parts of the book narrated by Bob Fraser remind me in particular of Ellroy's Dave Klein in "White Jazz") and covers similar subject matter; but Peace has a distinct voice and a different agenda to Ellroy.

A superb and chilling novel. Unmissable.

Sensational Sequel
Nineteen Seventy Seven is the second in Peace's Yorkshire Quartet; four books that chronicle the secret history of Yorkshire from the Seventies to the Eighties. I'm a big fan of the first book, Nineteen Seventy Four and this sequel is even better. Set against the background of the Silver Jubilee, foul weather, punk and reggae sounds, this is the harrowing but engrossing tale of a journalist and a policeman who are sucked into the devastating spiral of despair caused by the crimes of the Yorkshire Ripper. The prose and plotting are simply superb, the former verging on a kind of brutal but beautiful poetry. Quite simply Nineteen Seventy Seven is the best novel of any genre I've read since his last book. Bring on the next!