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Val McDermid's Allie Burns series is an absolute delight - more so, perhaps if you were alive and following the news in the years when they are set. I enjoyed 1979 but perhaps was too young to have fully followed the events of that time. 1989 hit the mark for me.

Before reading, I'd predicted certain things that would be in it; Lockerbie, AIDS, the end of the Communist block. But I hadn't recalled Robert Maxwell stealing from his pensioners, which becomes a not very disguised sub-plot (with Ghislaine replaced with a Genevieve and all the many siblings of the Maxwell clan non-existent). I hadn't expected mobile phones (heavy and expensive) or some kind of proto-emails for submitting copy.

I like books that remind me that things were not always as they are today. When you can't rely on being able to phone people any time, any place, anywhere and when communication means posting a letter, it introduces deeper plot development. I'm frustrated by modern novels that rely on nothing more than a DNA reveal or some mobile phone records to fix the whodunnit.

The issues around an exodus of Scottish AIDS sufferers heading south due to poor levels of care in their home country was not something I'd know about at the time. Given that 1979 touches a lot on how long it took Scotland to decriminalise homosexuality, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.

I lived in Manchester in 1989 and there were some lovely touches that brought back memories. At one point, Allie has lunch with a contact in a bar that served bread and cheese - I knew it well. It was called Duke's 92 and was a regular Sunday lunch haunt when I started work a few years later. I was surprised that the Madchester music scene didn't get an airing.

I'm now starting to wonder which news will feature in 1999. For sure, we should see the spectre of Y2K, war in the Balkans (McDermid did an excellent book set against that backdrop a few years ago), and perhaps a touch of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton.

Can't wait for the next one!