O! what Man will do fore a Rime!

Note: The review below was taken directly from my Goodreads account.

Nineteen Seventy-Four is about Edward Dunford, a crime correspondent for the Yorkshire Post, covering the murder of a young girl. His search for the truth gets him in a lot of trouble, and I'm really not saying that lightly, holy shit.

I quite liked this, but I'll admit it wasn't what I was expecting exactly. Mostly because I thought Peace's entire Red Riding Quartet series was about the Yorkshire Ripper, but the first book in the series is actually not. So, get that thought out of your head right away.

Aside from that, this book is very fast-paced, which I liked. There's nothing more tedious than a crime case that is realistically investigated in an appropriate time-frame. However, the fast pace did make it harder to follow the threads that Eddie was investigating. I also liked that I couldn't really guess which direction the clues were heading in or whodunit, because I like being surprised and shocked at the end of the investigation. I don't want crime stories to be me watching Criminal Minds and figuring out the murderer about fifteen minutes into the show; that's boring.

The tone and mood of the book was very film noir and that's one of my favourite genres of anything, so yeah I enjoyed that part. It was also very graphic and violent, which doesn't turn me off, but certainly adds to the mood. Peace makes 1970s Yorkshire look like a cutthroat place and very dark. That's extremely appealing in a crime novel.

The mystery is good, the plot is a page-turner and the ending is handled well. If you like crime novels, I think you should probably give this one a go.