ŷ������

The second in Val McDermid's historical new series featuring her investigative journalist, Allie Burns, is a nostalgic look at the uncertainties that plagued the turbulent year of 1989, including a rapidly changing newspaper industry that has shed journalists like there is no tomorrow, the imminent fall of the Berlin Wall, and the horrors of the HIV and Aids crisis. I listened to this on audio, 12 hours long, mostly grippingly narrated by Katie Leung, although she relates some characters in a staccato fashion that grates a little. The novel begins with an unknown figure landing on media baron, Wallace 'Ace' Lockhart's remote island home and planting a deadly ticking time bomb of a fatal surprise in the future.

Allie is running Ace's northern news operation of the Sunday Globe, she is far from happy with the loss of her investigative role or the bleak descent of the tabloid media into the gutter. When she is covering the Pan Am Flight 103 memorial service, her boss Ace insists he feature in her report. She and her partner, Rona, a features writer, have moved to Manchester, significantly more gay friendly than Glasgow, and are enjoying living there. Allie has opened up about being gay to her parents, but they are horrified, not accepting like Rona's family. When she discovers shady goings on in the medical research on HIV/Aids, she cannot help but investigate, although she fails to forsee the betrayal that is set to come her way, but she is to continue to follow the story in Berlin. Allie begins to question her identity as a journalist after the trauma experienced during the harrowing scenes of death and terror that play out at Hillsborough. She finds herself looking into Ace's past life at the behest of his daughter, surprised at what she discovers.

McDermid draws on her personal history and career in journalism, this lends the events covered in 1989 a gripping vibrancy and urgency, the coverage of Hillsborough was particularly heartbreaking. This is a captivating read with a terrific central protagonist in an Allie working in a fast changing industry, and caught up in a world on the brink of great historical changes, including Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia, and the imminent break up of Eastern Europe. This was a wonderfully engaging read that took me back to a ground breaking year, the atmospheric narrative captures this historical period and key events so well that it all comes alive. I assume that McDermid will return with Allie Burns in 1999, I look forward to this with great anticipation! This is a great series which I think many readers will love.