Nineteen Seventy Four

Red Riding Quartet

By: David Peace

Narrated by: Saul Reichlin

Jeanette Garland, missing Castleford, July 1969. Susan Ridyard, missing Rochdale, March 1972. Claire Kemplay, missing Morley, since yesterday. It’s winter, 1974, Yorkshire, Christmas bombs, Lord Lucan on the run, the Bay City Rollers, and Eddie Dunford’s got the job he wanted – crime correspondent for the Yorkshire Evening Post. He didn’t know it was going to be a season in hell. A dead little girl with a swan’s wings stitched into her back. A gypsy camp in a ring of fire. Corruption everywhere you look.

In Nineteen Seventy Four, David Peace brings passion and stylistic bravado to this terrifyingly intense journey into a secret history of sexual obsession and greed, and starts a highly acclaimed crime series that has redefined how the genre is approached.

David Peace (born 1967) is an English author. He was named one of the Best of Young British Novelists by Granta in 2003 and won the 2004 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. He is also known for his novels GB84 and The Damned United; the latter was made into a feature film starring Michael Sheen.

*Please note this audiobook contains explicit language.

©2000 David Peace (P)2010 Audible

Critic reviews

" Nineteen Seventy Four is raw and furiously alive, the literary equivalent of a hard right to the jaw. David Peace has delivered the finest crime fiction debut of the year and joined a select group of novelists who are transforming the genre with passion and style." (George Pelecanos)

"Quite simply, this is the future of British crime fiction." ( Time Out)

"The pace is relentless, the style staccato-plus and the morality bleak and forlorn....Peace's voice is powerful and unique." ( Guardian)

Exactly As Advertised

A great noir and period piece- don't look for uplift but it will bring 1974 back if you lived through it.

Would suggest the narrator tone it down a notch- he starts at 10 on the "sounding desperate" scale and stays there for the duration- its exhausting and not always appropriate.

Creepy -- and not in a good way.

This book was disturbingly violent, but I could look beyond that if I cared about the characters (I didn't) or if the plot was great (It wasn't). I love British crime fiction, so this was just a big disappointment. Oddly, the most interesting bit was the interview with the author at the end of the audio.

Can't recommend

I found this book unnecessarily gross and crude, seemingly only for shock value - not to enhance the story line. The plot was poorly developed and the main character inconsistently portrayed Other characters were totally undeveloped. Don't waste your time.

I didn't get it

I tried really hard to finish this book but just could not. I loved Saul Reichlin narration of the Millenium series but here his work was not so good. The never ending swearing bothered me and seemed unnecessary.

Hard to follow for a non-native english speaker

Like a gritty comic book - told in flashes/bursts. The story definitely has potential, but I found it hard to follow (as a non-native english speaker).

it can be hard but is worth it

it is a book of an author that is trying to find his bearings. it can be a bit vulgar, perhaps"a bit" is a huge understatement.I am going to try to read the second book as I believe that the author still has some things to give.

Peak Grim Up North

Outstanding work both in writing and performance. Evokes 1970s Northern England at its gritty worst though.

Brilliantly refreshing and original

An excellent work from a writer with an original voice. I notice there have been a great many complaints about the "swearing and cursing", but the whole point of Peace's gritty realism is surely (as the author has said himself) that violence and death and the circumstances surrounding them should not be sanitized. They are awful things.

As to the grimness, well, this is what life was like in the North of England in 1974. I remember. And when working class people have their backs against the wall there are even more expletives than usual... plus the Brits swear *a lot* in the natural course of things.

Myself, I can't wait for the rest of the series - and Audible... where have Mr Peace's books disappeared to? A lot of us want more... not to have the Quartet shelved (to my dismay I can't even find the first two books - which I've bought - in Audible's listings any more) presumably because a few people say they are "personally offended" by all the swearing, and asking (rather cheekily) if the characters are speaking English?! Rather juvenile criticisms, to say the least.

What happened to free speech? And besides, the rest of the world deals very cheerfully with American accents from all the states in the US - indeed the accents usually enrich the work. I think in fairness that the same courtesy should be extended to the British Isles.

My question now, Audible, is where is the rest of the Red Riding Quartet? Bring it on! Please... It's first class stuff, and some of us are hooked on it.

Over the Top

This book has some fascinating concepts, written in an intriguing manner and read perfectly. On the other side it is just too brutal and coarse to believe. It seems like graphic violence is in vogue these days, haven taken the place of well written tension and terror. I liked this effort a lot, but could not finish it after the hero was beaten up for the umpteenth time? I would not recommend this to any one. Cut down, cleaned up a bit and a little less blood and brutal sex would have made this a very interesting work. Chuck

fun but strange

I felt like I was thrust back in time, actually to 1974, pretty much an alien culture now. This is a man in the midst of a slow speed come apart. Reading this is like being a voyeur at a bad train wreck. It is set in England, so much of the slang and some of the accent were lost on me, so that at times I had a hard time telling what was going on. If foul language offends you, you should skip this one. I do believe that the author had purpose for the language as it is the vernacular of the characters he has written. After listening for a while it made me happy to come outside and sit in my sunny back yard under the orange tree and soak in the sunshine and smell of flowers. This book is dark in mood, setting and events. It starts with a funeral interupted by news of the murder of a young girl and degenerates from there. Overall, though, I'm glad I gave it a chance.