This is depressing AF. ( )

Deeply unpleasant but ultimately satisfying read. I can’t imagine that folks would go straight to Nineteen Seventy-Seven without reading Nineteen Seventy-Four first, so prospective readers would already be familiar with Peace prose:

The clipped, staccato rhythms.

Hypnotic in their repetition.

In their repetition.

The refusal to connect the narrative dots for the reader.

Words spat out like bullets from a machine gun etc.

Unpleasant: the torrents of profanity, the racism and misogyny, not to mention explicit violence, are relentless and punishing and not for the squeamish.

But satisfying: it's nonetheless a hell of a page-turning read. Peace packs tension in between the lines, even in the most ordinary sequences (like in the many scenes of copious drinking). The reader's patience for the damaged and obsessive protagonists is arguably tested by their tendency towards melodramatic torment -- there's an awful lot of drunken tears and suicidal self-pity, even more than characters in a James Ellroy novel -- but the book on the whole is well worth the effort. Just don't be surprised if you want to start viewing cute puppy videos on YouTube after reading the book just to shake the bleakness and grime off. ( )

Dos personajes, dos supervivientes de la primera novela del Red Riding Quartet se encuentran en la segunda: el periodista Jack Whitehead, que lleva bebiendo unos cuarenta años y que, tras unos años de depresión y retiro, se reincorpora a las páginas de sucesos del Yorkshire Post; y el sargento Bob Fraser, a quienes sus compañeros llaman «Don Limpio» a pesar de que les consta que no es fiel a su mujer y que no se arredra en los brutales interrogatorios. A ambos les une la investigación de una serie de atroces asesinatos de prostitutas, obra de un nuevo «Jack el Destripador» al que tal vez se le estén atribuyendo más crímenes de los que ha cometido. Al periodista y al policía les une también un amor secreto, trágico, por las prostitutas.

Mörkare, skitigare, dystrare och mer berusad än första delen. Tror inte det förekommer en enda positiv mening i hela boken. Det är bra men tillslut står det en upp i halsen, framförallt då jag läste denna direkt efter 1974. Dessutom berättas historien ur två jag perspektiv (polis & journalist). Så det gäller att vara med hela tiden som läsare. Men trots allt är det en riktigt bra bok. ( )

Peace's poetry-as-prose style is certainly distinctive but it gets a bit much at times and distracts me because it feels like "author showing off" rather than "character baring their soul". That style gets more and more intrusive as the book goes on and that, combined with the struggle to find one of the protagonists sympathetic, makes this a 3 rather than a 4 star. ( )