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Synopsis:

Half-decent copper Bob Fraser and burnt-out hack Jack Whitehead would be considered villains in most people’s books. They 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.

Review:

Nineteen Seventy Seven the second in the Red Riding Quartet. This installment takes place during the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, where everyone is celebrating twenty-five years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. This celebration is tarnished by a person killing prostitutes, and a police force trying to catch this criminal that is just as corrupt as the thieves, rapists, and murderers they are sworn to stop. The narration of Nineteen Seventy Seven is split in two. Chapters are in first person with alternating narrators. One is disgraced investigator Bob Fraser. The other is has-been journalist Jack Whitehead. They both have their problems with alcohol, women, and ghosts that haunt their every move. The biggest key to understanding what is happening is keeping track of who is narrating at the time, even though sometimes it is purposefully vague.

David Peace has written a novel that feels like less of a crime novel, trying to find a serial killer who is murdering and mutilating prostitutes, and more of a study of two deeply flawed men who are so thick into the mud of their poor decisions and trauma responses that they cannot find their way out. Instead of finding a way to escape or redeem themselves, they both sink deeper and deeper into the muck and slime of their poor choices. They are sick over the murders that are happening in their city and the sickness eats at them. 

I honestly cannot decide how much I like this novel. David Peace has written a crime novel that at moments feels dreamlike and hallucinogenic, but mostly, Nineteen Seventy Seven is ugly and very brutal. There are not only killings and mutilations, but there are violent rapes, racism, and abuse. The police are even dirtier than the criminals, and in the end, the only characters that we have to root for are the women who are running away from the men. Every man is angry and dangerous in this novel, able to do anything to anyone. They all have a capability to be a killer at any moment. This putridness rotting the soul of every character in this novel really makes for a place where you do not want to stay. Because it just is not safe for anyone.