Nineteen Seventy Four

From the very first page of David Peace's first novel, 1974, it soon becomes clear that something is rotten in the state of Yorkshire: a young girl is missing.

The Yorkshire Post's young but disillusioned crime correspondent, Edward Dunford, is assigned to the story, while juggling the recent death of his father and the return to his native Yorkshire after a brief, unsuccessful stint in Fleet Street. For the jaded Dunford, it's just another story; the only intrigue is whether or not the girl will be found dead or alive before Christmas. That is, until the girl is discovered brutally murdered, face down in a ditch with a pair of swan's wings sewn into her back.

As Dunford follows the case, he begins to make a series of terrifying connections with a string of child murders, plunging him into a gut-wrenching nightmare of corruption, violence, sadism, blackmail and sexual obsession--from the upper echelons of local government to the tacky heart of Yorkshire darkness.

As Peace's tale of corruption and conspiracy unravels, it becomes clear that 1974 is as influenced by Orwell's own bleak vision of Britain in 1984 as it is by the wonderfully evoked atmosphere of the mid- 70s. The Bay City Rollers, Leeds United, It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Vauxhall Viva's all make an appearance. The novel works at several levels, from the brilliantly unsentimental homecoming of the gifted, alienated northern son, to a terrifyingly accurate portrayal of an insular, tribal community. The plot is complex and frenetic and Peace often leaves strands untied, especially as he builds to an extremely powerful climax. Yet the dialogue is fast, witty and violent; a must read for fans of Yorkshire Gothic. -- Jerry Brotton

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A brave try, but.... - Rated
This is the first David Peace I've read. Comparisons to Ellroy are always unfair, as he's a bona-fide genius in a mediocre world, but to me, this book falls well short.
It reads to me like someone who has written an average thriller, then gone back and re-written it in a cod Ellroy stylee, then gone back and put in some references to 1970s cars. Then he's published it and hoped he's fooled everyone. And apparently he has.
The book meanders and veers without any sense that the narrative is moving forward. Peace needs to have a point and a purpose, not 300 pages of everyone blundering around until the author gets bored and ends it. His attempts at freeform stream of consciousness - aimed at imparting a sense of chaos and anarchy - ring false and smack of desperate over-trying. .
Characters quickly become interchangeable and therefore ciphers - all the coppers are exactly the same, all the journalists are exactly the same, all the businessmen are exactly the same.
Inexlicably for someone who lived it, Peace fails to create a sense of time and place. Using a few brand names and the word "owt" isn't good enough. The 70s was a time of flux, of eras ending, of profound political and social upheaval. All we get is some unsurprising racism, violence, and chilly rain.
Bret Easton Ellis cleverly combined extreme violence with something sharp by way of satire. Read Ellroy again - every word has a purpose and every phrase hits you like a boxer's punch. Ellroy gives you everything you need to know about a time and place in 400 dazzling pages. Peace has a long way to go to make that sort of impact.

Rock and Roll - Rated
A completely amoral rollercoaster ride of a book that leaves you breathless. Can't wait to read the next one in the series. The book isn't perfect. It's hard to follow the plot at times and leaves you asking questions at the end. However, this it is wonderfully raw and hard hitting and it's freshness makes up for any lack of polish. There is an obvious James Ellroy influence, and that's good because James Ellroy is good and this is good. Read it.

fuse lit for a devestating quartet - Rated
I like my crime black as night and completely fearless. 1974 delivers not only great crime, just the way I like it, but great literature. Peace has redefined the crime novel.( I've heard this said many times as a crime afficianado, but in this case it really is true) Generally in crime novels bad things happen in an (essentially) good place. Someone then sets out to make things right. In 1974, the whole world (Yorkshire) is bad and NOTHING can set it right. The truth has to be squeezed out (and I don't use this cliche lightly) like blood from a stone. In Peace's world, the facts are profoundly disturbing and the emotions surrounding them are worse. Morality is virtually non-existent and what there is brings about only brutal survival. This is indeed a Godless universe, and visiting it through these pages truly gives a glimpse of hell. Peace has to be admired for his courage and his unflinching gaze into the abyss. It is troubling to read, what was it like to WRITE. Just to see the author's name - PEACE - after having read this book reminds you how far from peace this time and place are (were).
1974 is the first book of the red riding quartet (1974,1977,1980,1983) and cannot truly be appreciated (good as it is) without finishing the quartet. While a liitle rougher, and not quite as tight as the following three books, 1974 has a raw urgency and ends(?) with a lot of unanswered questions. Questions that are answered, or rather confronted and dissected in the following three books. 1974 lights the fuse,and then the bombs start falling. Woe to the reader with a weak constitution. Once read, these books will NEVER be forgotten

As claustrophobic as a bag over the head - Rated
You won't forget this one in a hurry.
Serpent's Tail consistently put out top class work, and this is no exception.
Bleak, dark, sickeningly violent, horribly believable, populated by characters who are for the most part doomed, it's never an easy ride. Finishing this book genuinely gave me the feeling of coming up for air, and ever since I have had the contradictory feelings of wishing I hadn't read it, but being glad I had. I will be reading other books in the quartet, but not too soon.

What kind of hard-boiled nutcase is David Peace? - Rated
When it comes to crime fiction, I like it bleak, nasty and nihilistic (makes my own problems seem less overwhelming somehow) but nothing could have prepared me for 'Nineteen Seventy Four' by David Peace. A bleaker, nastier and more nihilistic novel you'd be hard-pressed to find. This book is disturbing to the point of insanity, sickening to the point of physical nausea. Not just because of the harrowing plot and relentlessly graphic detail, either - but because somebody actually dreamed it up in the first place!
I know a work of art should stand alone, independent of its creator, and there's no doubt that 'Nineteen Seventy Four' does that. This is noir at its most brutal and thought-provoking. But I couldn't help wondering about its author. What kind of hard-boiled nutcase is David Peace, to come up with such a book - the closest thing to literary hell this side of James Ellroy's 'Silent Terror'? I guess there's always the chance he's a sweet-natured, peace-loving, vegetarian optimist... but I wouldn't stake my life on it.

'Nineteen Seventy Four' takes the reader on a frenetic and brutal trip through the corrupt underbelly of Yorkshire society in the mid-seventies. An era of dodgy music and TV, and even dodgier fashion- not to mention bent cops, drunks, freaks, desperados, and crimes so heinous they defy belief. Bang smack in the middle of it all is Eddie Dunford, a young but jaded crime journo assigned to background research on a series of gruesome murders, whilst his nemesis Jack Whitehead - Crime Reporter of the Year - basks in the headlining glory. Still grieving over his father's recent death, and plagued by a plethora of personal demons that are never fully explained, Eddie soon finds himself caught in a criminal conspiracy from which the only escape-route leads straight to the abyss.

The book's first-person perspective allows the reader intimate access to Eddie's consciousness, experiencing his slide from bitter and disillusioned, to downright despairing and hopeless. One could be forgiven for mistaking him for a bad guy - he's a violent, dirty, womanising bastard, and only qualifies as a hero of sorts because most of the other characters' kinks and perversions make his own seem mild in comparison. But his narration is compelling, confronting - and ultimately moving. At times Peace's prose style reaches a poetic kind of fever pitch, heightening our sense of Eddie's internal delirium, and creating surprising beauty amidst the ugliness and misery.

Cliched though it may sound, this book had me in a stranglehold from the first page - and still hasn't released me, weeks after finishing the damn thing! It's that powerful. Hopefully, writing this review will help get it out of my system...