Bleak 70s

Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

David Peace's debut crime novel starts out fantastically well, with an unlikeable young journalist entering the investigation of the disappearance and murder of a 10-year-old girl that may be connected to other missing children cases. Leeds' dreariness towards the end of 1974 is perfectly set up for this noir that borrows from Irvine Welsh's style and taste for the brutal (violence and humor), peopled by corrupt cops, drunk journalists and thoroughly miserable denizens.

So it's a big disappointment when Peace loses it all towards the end, with an entire section set in prison that reads like bad creative writing 101, plus an unbelievable and badly-explained resolution that comes across (to me at least) as Peace not knowing where he was going with his story. Peace is also not very good at shifting gears throughout the novel, introducing fast-paced action very awkwardly into scenes - almost as if he were already thinking of the story as a film/TV adaptation.

Still, it was a mostly enjoyable, atmospheric crime read that made me wonder if the storytelling improves in Peace's sequels (this is the first part of the Red Riding quartet.)

View all my reviews