An honest cop and good man marinates in hopelessness and evil. Best of the series. An incredibly difficult book, but worth it. ( )

Improves on 1977 in one way with a fully sympathetic protagonist but gets much worse in another as the prose poetry becomes more repetitive and intrusive to the point that it's just tiring to read.

The same phrases, sentences and paragraphs repeated again and again. Up to a point, it's effective but in the latter parts of the book I found myself skipping whole paragraphs because it was the second or third time I'd read that same paragraph on the same page and I'd read it a dozen or more times before. If the device is used to the extent that the reader is skipping passages then it has been over-used.

The ending is somewhat confusing but will presumably be made slightly clearer in the final book (the semi-spoiler question being "who pulled the trigger?"), and the last minute reveal about one character's past involvement in a sleazy business left me asking what were the chances that this person got picked for the team in the first place? If they hadn't (and the conspirators who used it against them had no control over that) then it would have been totally irrelevant. Coincidence at the beginning of a story is okay but right at the end asks for a bit of a leap of faith on the part of the reader.

Whilst the TV adaptations leave out a lot of stuff (including the entire 1977 installment) they feel somehow more complete and satisfying than this re-read is showing the books to be. ( )

I'll put the same review on all four of them:
Nineteen Seventy-Four
Nineteen Seventy-Seven
Nineteen Eighty
Nineteen Eighty Three
I read them as a challenge - based on camaraderie with coworkers.
Once I started the series, didn't especially want to wimp out, and then was compelled to read thru to the last book to see if I could possibly figure out what the "ending" was.
I'm not faulting the author - it was a unique and compelling writing style and twisted plot with characters jumping back and forth between books.
I did it. I read them all. I think they got weirder and more difficult as they went along, but if you're looking for some intense, darkly challenging books - have at it.
Read in 2011. ( )

I think this was my favourite of the Red Riding quartet. The narrative is based around Peter Hunter, a Manchester officer brought in to the West Yorkshire force to review the investigation into the Yorkshire Ripper. Hunter is a great character, the first police officer within the series you think you can trust. The book is based mainly around the hunt for the Ripper, which was based on real facts and I think because it was based around a real murder (and one that affected me strongly in my memory as I was only about 8 years' old at the time) it was intriguing. The book goes further into the corruption in the West Yorkshire police and is very believable. ( )

Nineteen Seventy-Four
Nineteen Seventy-Seven
Nineteen Eighty
Nineteen Eighty-Three

I was inspired to read this crime quartet by arubabookwoman's superb review below. In her summary, she wrote "These four novels are amazing. They are not, however, for everyone. There are obscenities on every page. Brutality and violence abound, sometimes graphically described. Everyone is corrupt. The novels are bleak, gritty, cynical and despairing. If this description doesn't bother you, I highly recommend these books. Read as one, they are a masterpiece."

There is little I can add to this, except to say that Peace's writing is exceptional. Even though it can often be difficult to know who is talking or thinking, the way Peace gets inside people's heads so that his writing replicates how they think is astounding and, indeed, often poetic, despite the obscenity and graphic violence. I couldn't put these books down, even as they horrified me.