LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
A new book by Val McDermid is to be celebrated, this is up there on my list of favourite novels by the queen of crime, so you can party like it’s, well, 1979. Bright and ambitious journalist Allie Burns heads back home to Scotland and teams up with Danny Sullivan, but in breaking one major story and investigating another, they’re also making some serious enemies. There are obviously plenty of Val McDermid fans out there, if by chance you’ve not read any before, then I can recommend starting right here, at the first in the Allie Burns thriller series. One of the highlights for me is most definitely the characters, they are so finely drawn and so very believable. This is a novel that sinks deeply and evocatively into the past, wrapping you in the atmosphere and culture, both social and political. I was a child in the 70’s but even if you weren’t of that time, you’re taken there. The plot focuses on the difficulties of not being a member of the boys club, of struggling that little bit harder to make your mark as it explores the two stories under investigation. Yes, there’s tension, but there’s as much in the office as there is on the street, so at times it’s slow-burn but explosive is waiting just round the corner. If you didn’t know, Val McDermid used to be a journalist working in the era she’s writing about, I couldn’t help feeling that her very essence is stamped into the pages. For me this was a beautifully easy read, and by that I mean it is so well written, you can just let go and explore. 1979 is a cracking novel, provocative and powerful, it heads straight onto our list of LoveReading Star Books.
Liz Robinson
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About
1979 Synopsis
The unmissable first thriller in an electrifying, brand-new series from the Queen of Crime.
The shadows hide a deadly story . . .
1979. It is the winter of discontent, and reporter Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. There are few women in the newsroom and she needs something explosive for the boys' club to take her seriously.
Soon Allie and fellow journalist Danny Sullivan are exposing the criminal underbelly of respectable Scotland. They risk making powerful enemies - and Allie won't stop there.
When she discovers a home-grown terrorist threat, Allie comes up with a plan to infiltrate the group and make her name. But she's a woman in a man's world . . . and putting a foot wrong could be fatal.
About This Edition
ISBN: |
9780751583076 |
Publication date: |
3rd February 2022 |
Author: |
Val McDermid |
Publisher: |
Sphere an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group |
Format: |
Paperback |
Pagination: |
464 pages |
Series: |
Allie Burns |
Primary Genre |
Thriller and Suspense
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Other Genres: |
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Recommendations: |
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Author
About Val McDermid
Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into forty languages, and have sold over eighteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011.
In 2016, Val received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and in 2017 received the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime, and was elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Val has served as a judge for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize, and was Chair of the Wellcome Book Prize in 2017. She is the recipient of six honorary doctorates, is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford and a Professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand. She writes full time and divides her time between Edinburgh and East Neuk of Fife.
Photo Credit: Charlotte Graham
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