Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #676178 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
“David Peace is transforming the genre with passion and style.”
—George Pelecanos

“This is the future of British crime fiction. . . . Extraordinary and original.”
—Time Out

“Simply superb. . . . Peace is a masterful storyteller, and Nineteen Seventy-Seven is impossible to put down. . . . A must-read thriller.”
—Yorkshire Post

“Peace's powerful novel exposes a side of life which most of us would prefer to ignore.”
—Daily Mail

About the Author
David Peace grew up in Yorkshire in the '70's and vividly remembers listening to the hoax tape of the Yorkshire Ripper on his way home from school. He is one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2003 and lives in Japan.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1

Leeds.

Sunday 29 May 1977.

It's happening again:

When the two sevens clash . . .

Bunting unmarked rubber through another hot dawn to another ancient park with her secret dead, from Potter's Field to Soldier's Field, parks giving up their ghosts, it's happening all over again.

Sunday morning, windows open, and it's going to be another scorcher, red postbox sweating, dogs barking at a rising sun.

Radio on: alive with death.

Stereo: car and walkie-talkie both:

Proceeding to Soldier's Field.

Noble's voice from another car.

Ellis turns to me, a look like we should be going faster.

'She's dead,' I say, but knowing what he should be thinking:

Sunday morning - giving HIM a day's start, a day on us, another life on us. Nothing but the bloody Jubilee in every paper till tomorrow morning, no-one remembering another Saturday night in Chapeltown.

Chapeltown - my town for two years; leafy streets filled with grand old houses carved into shabby little flats filled full of single women selling sex to fill their bastard kids, their bastard men, and their bastard habits.

Chapeltown - my deal: MURDER SQUAD.

The deals we make, the lies they buy, the secrets we keep, the silence they get.

I switch on the siren, a sledgehammer through all their Sunday mornings, a clarion call for the dead.

And Ellis says, 'That'll wake the fucking nig-nogs up.'

But a mile up ahead I know she'll not flinch upon her damp dew bed.

And Ellis smiles, like this is what it's all about; like this was what he'd signed up for all along.

But he doesn't know what's lying on the grass at Soldier's Field.

I do.

I know.

I've been here before.

And now, now it's happening again.

'Where the fuck's Maurice?'

I'm walking towards her, across the grass, across Soldier's Field. I say, 'He'll be here.'

Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Noble, George's boy, out from behind his fat new Millgarth desk, between me and her.

I know what he's hiding: there'll be a raincoat over her, boots or shoes placed on her thighs, a pair of panties left on one leg, a bra pushed up, her stomach and breasts hollowed out with a screwdriver, her skull caved in with a hammer.

Noble looks at his watch and says, 'Well, anyroad, I'm taking this one.'

There's a bloke in a tracksuit by a tall oak, throwing up. I look at my watch. It's seven and there's a fine steam coming off the grass all across the park.

Eventually I say, 'It him?'

Noble moves out of the way. 'See for yourself.'

'Fuck,' says Ellis.

The man in the tracksuit looks up, spittle all down him, and I think about my son and my stomach knots.

Back on the road, more cars are arriving, people gathering.

Detective Chief Superintendent Noble says, 'The fuck you put that sodding siren on for? World and his wife'll be out here now.'

'Possible witnesses,' I smile and finally look at her:

There's a tan raincoat draped over her, white feet and hands protruding. There are dark stains on the coat.

'Have a bloody look,' Noble says to Ellis.

'Go on,' I add.

Detective Constable Ellis slowly puts on two white plastic gloves and then squats down on the grass beside her.

He lifts up the coat, swallows and looks up at me. 'It's him,' he says.

I just stand there, nodding, looking off at some crocuses or something.

Ellis lowers the coat.

Noble says, 'He found her.'

I look back over at the man in the tracksuit, at the man with the sick on him, grateful. 'Got a statement?'

'If it's not too much trouble,' smiles Noble.

Ellis stands up. 'What a fucking way to go,' he says.

Detective Chief Superintendent Noble lights up and exhales. 'Silly slag,' he hisses.

'I'm Detective Sergeant Fraser and this is Detective Constable Ellis. We'd like to take a statement and then you can get off home.'

'Statement.' He pales again. 'You don't think I had anything . . .'

'No, sir. Just a statement detailing how you came to be here and report this.'

'I see.'

'Let's sit in the car.'

We walk over to the road and get in the back. Ellis sits in the front and switches off the radio.

It's hotter than I thought it would be. I take out my notebook and pen. He reeks. The car was a bad idea.

'Let's start with your name and address.'

'Derek Poole, with an e. 4 Strickland Avenue, Shadwell.'

Ellis turns round. 'Off Wetherby Road?'

Mr Poole says, 'Yes.'

'That's quite a jog,' I say.

'No, no. I drove here. I just jog round the park.'

'Every day?'

'No. Just Sundays.'

'What time did you get here?'

He pauses and then says, 'About sixish.'

'Where'd you park?'

'About a hundred yards up there,' he says, nodding up the Roundhay Road.

He's got secrets has Derek Poole and I'm laying odds with myself:

2-1 affair.

3-1 prostitutes.

4-1 puff.

Sex, whatever.

He's a lonely man is Derek Poole, often bored. But this isn't what he had in mind for today.

He's looking at me. Ellis turns round again.

I ask, 'Are you married?'

'Yes, I am,' he replies, like he's lying.

I write down married.

He says, 'Why?'

'What do you mean, why?'

He shifts in his tracksuit. 'I mean, why do you ask?'

'Same reason I'm going to ask how old you are.'

'I see. Just routine?'

I don't like Derek Poole, his infidelities and his arrogance, so I say, 'Mr Poole, there's nothing routine about a young woman having her stomach slashed open and her skull smashed in.'

Derek Poole looks at the floor of the car. He's got sick on his trainers and I'm worried he'll puke again and we'll have the stink for a week.

'Let's just get this over with,' I mutter, knowing I've gone too far.

DC Ellis opens the door for Mr Poole and we're all back out in the sun.

There are so many fucking coppers now, and I'm looking at them thinking, too many chiefs:

There's my gaffer Detective Inspector Rudkin, Detective Superintendent Prentice, DS Alderman, the old head of Leeds CID Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson, the new head Noble and, in the centre of the scrum, the man himself: Assistant Chief Constable George Oldman.

Over by the body Professor Farley, the Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Leeds University, and his assistants are preparing to take her away from all this.

Detective Superintendent Alderman has a handbag in his hands, he's taking a WPC and a uniform off with him.

They've got a name, an address.

Prentice is marshalling the uniforms, going door to door, corralling the gawpers.

The cabal turns our way.

Detective Inspector Rudkin, as hungover as fuck, shouts, 'Murder Room, thirty minutes.'

The Murder Room.

Millgarth Street, Leeds.

One hundred men stuffed into the second-floor room. No windows, only smoke, white lights, and the faces of the dead.

In comes George and the rest of his boys, back from the park. There are pats on the back, handshakes here, winks there, like some fucking reunion.

I stare across the desks and the phones, the sweating shirt backs and the stains, at the walls behind the Assistant Chief Constable, at the two faces I've seen so many, many times, every day, every night, when I wake, when I dream, when I fuck my wife, when I kiss my son:

Theresa Campbell.

Joan Richards.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

Noble speaks:

'Gentlemen, he's back.'

The dramatic pause, the knowing smiles.

'The following memorandum has been sent to all Divisions and surrounding areas:

'At 0650 this morning, the body of Mrs Marie Watts born 7.2.45, of 3 Francis Street, Leeds 7, was found on Soldier's Field, Roundhay, near West Avenue, Leeds 8. The body was found to have extensive head injuries, a cut throat, and stab wounds to the abdomen.

'This woman had been living in the Leeds area since October 1976, when she came up from London. It is believed she worked in hotels in London. She was reported missing by her husband from Blackpool in November 1975.

'Enquiries are requested of all persons coming into police custody for bloodstains on their clothing and also enquiries at dry cleaners for any clothing with blood on it. Any replies to Murder Room, Millgarth Street Police Station.

'Message ends.'

Detective Chief Superintendent Noble stands there with his piece of paper, waiting.

'Add to that,' he continues. 'Boyfriend, one Stephen Barton, 28, black, also of 3 Francis Street. Some form for burglary, GBH. Probably pimped the late Mrs Watts. Works the door at the International over in Bradford, sometimes Cosmos. Didn't show up at either place yesterday and hasn't been seen since about six o'clock last night when he left the Corals on Skinner Lane, where he'd just chucked away best part of fifty quid.'

The room's impressed. We've got a name, a history, and it's not yet two hours.

A chance at last.

Noble lowers his eyes, his tongue on the edge of his lips. Quietly he says, 'You lot, find him.'

The blood of one hundred men pumping hard and fast, hounds the lot of us, the stink of the hunt like bloody marks upon our brows.

Oldman stands up:

'It's going to break down like this:

'As you all know, this is number 3 at best. Then there's the other possible attacks. You've all worked one or more of them so, as of today, you're all now officially Prostitute Murder Squad, out of this Station, under Detective Chief Superintendent Noble here.'

PROSTITUTE MURDER SQUAD.

The room is humming, buzzing, singing: everyone getting what they wanted.

Me too -

Off post office robberies and Help the fucking Aged:

Sub-postmasters at gun-point, six-barrels in their faces, wives tied up with a smack and a punch in their nighties, only Scrooge w...

Customer Reviews

Experimental crime fiction with a social conscience
David Peace's first novel, Nineteen seventy four was a story with roots in working class English literature. The central character, Eddy, a journalist, became embroiled in police corruption, and a sordid series of child murders. The novel was set in Yorkshire, written in the first person, and explored the underside of an area that months later saw the start of a vicious series of sexual murders committed by Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper". This was a promising debut. That promise starts to be fulfilled with the second volume in Peace's West Yorkshire Quartet, Nineteen Seventy Seven.

In this novel Peace raises his work a notch. He has produced one of the finest British crime novels of recent years, and in his quartet of novels looks set to produce one of the finest series since Ellroy's Dudley Smith novels.

The narrative in Nineteen Seventy Seven focuses on two characters, Jack Whitehead, a journalist; and Bob Fraser, a police sergeant. Both characters appeared in Nineteen Seventy Four. Both are haunted by the shocking conclusion to the earlier novel. Their stories are set against the backdrop of the Sutcliffe murders, and the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.

Each strand is written in first person narrative, and for the most part the plot lines run parallel, although Fraser and Whitehead meet and exchange information. There are some stylistic similarities between the two strands (both have astream of consciousness feel) but for the most part the characters are sufficiently differentiated. While the strands run parallel there are some similarities in their development. For example, both are, or become, involved with prostitutes at a time when those prostitutes in West Yorkshire feared for their lives due to the Sutcliffe murders.

This is where Peace has taken an audacious step. In Nineteen Seventy Seven he begins to work on a fictionalisation of the Sutcliffe murders. However, the salient facts remain accurate. He places his characters in the main regional newspaper, and in the crime squad investigating the murders. At the centre of the novel lie the murders, and Peace - in both strands - is interested in following up the victim's reactions. His characters visit the families. Unlike some of the crossword puzzle mysteries where murder is a game with no consequences here, everyone involved is affected, from the family, to those investigating, to those that are left, living in fear. It is this agenda that underpins the novel and Peace's third novel, Nineteen Eighty, published in the UK in August 2001. And it is this dimension, developing in this novel and still further in Nineteen eighty, that gives Nineteen seventy seven a depth that much contemporary crime and thriller fiction lacks.

Aside from the social dimension, Peace's work has raised a level from his first novel in his characterisation. Neither central character is an archetypal hero, neither wholly amoral. Whitehead and Fraser are both given enough complexity to be credible. There are some powerful (and very disturbing) scenes in which Fraser assaults his lover; coupled with a tenderness between Fraser and his child. Taking mere examples from the novel may make the characterisation sound pat, the usual policeman bending the rules with personal difficulties. It is not easy to convey how unlike the orthodox approach in crime fiction this is. However, differ it does; and this is primarily through the first person narrative.

One further dimension is the series of occasional transcripts from a fictionalised talk radio show where callers talk about the Ripper, the Jubilee, and late seventies Yorkshire. These interludes punctuate the chapters, acting like a Greek chorus on the events in the main narrative.

I should also note the powerful conclusion. In Nineteen seventy four, the conclusion is overblown, excessive. Here, in retrospect, it seems inevitable. Yet, it is all the more shocking for that.

As the second book in the series, I would recommend that this be read after Nineteen seventy four. There are various references, and incidental characters (including BJ , involved in the blackmail of a councillor in Nineteen seventy four) where knowledge from the first novel is presupposed. Without Nineteen seventy four I feel that many references would have passed me by. However, as the subject matter is sufficiently different this novel could be read as stand alone.

Having praised the novel why a rating of four and not five stars? This is based on one consideration central to Peace's agenda. I am uncertain to what extent crime novelists should deal with real events, fresh in the memories. While the novelist expresses concern about those affected - and makes this a central plank of the novel, could one argue that the very action of using the murders is itself potentially exploitative and damaging.

Highly recommended. If you liked this try On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill, or The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy.

Sometimes the speed of this novel is breathtaking
Following on from his spectacular first novel- "1974" which dealt with a series of child abductions and murders; 1977 is about the "Yorkshire Ripper" and a series of prostitution murders and mutilations. The two main characters are brought over from the first novel. Jack Whitehead, the 'Reporter of the Year' in "1974" is even more of a drunken wreck than he was three years before. Bob Fraser was a cop who worked on the first serial murders and now is working on the "Yorkshire Ripper" murders.

The "Ripper's" MO is to knock them out with blows to the head from a ball-peen hammer, and then he attacks their bodies with a philips screw- driver. Both men are involved with prostitute, as it seems is half of the police constabulary of Leeds and surrounding town where the murders occur. Fraser's is an ongoing relationship that is tangential to many of the murders and assaults that have occurred. Whitehead gets involved with one of the woman who survived the assault.

We are taken through the grisly murders and the abuse of suspects by both the police and at times, each other. If that sounds confusing, try reading the book. Peace has a very strange style to say the lease. He has each of his two narrators (Fraser and Whitehead) speak in the first person, and sometimes it's two or three pages before you can tell who's speaking. At other places he writes as train of thought (by the character) and you have a paragraph(?) that can run for pages without a period. Reading some parts of the book is like running, you can actually feel your heart rate speed-up. Quite the book.

Read it yourself and determine your own opinion.

Zeb Kantrowitz