1979
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£0.00 for first 30 days
1979
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Narrated by:
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Katie Leung
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By:
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Val McDermid
About this listen
The first in a thrilling new series from the queen of crime and an instant Sunday Times best seller narrated by acclaimed Scottish actress and Harry Potter star Katie Leung.
The shadows hide a deadly story....
1979. It is the winter of discontent, and reporter Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. There are few women in the newsroom, and she needs something explosive for the boys' club to take her seriously. Soon Allie and fellow journalist Danny Sullivan are exposing the criminal underbelly of respectable Scotland. They risk making powerful enemies - and Allie won't stop there. When she discovers a home-grown terrorist threat, Allie comes up with a plan to infiltrate the group and make her name. But she's a woman in a man's world...and putting a foot wrong could be fatal.
©2021 Val McDermid (P)2021 W F HoweListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
“McDermid is at her considerable best.” (Guardian)
"No one can plot or tell a story like she can." (Daily Express)
"One of today's most accomplished crime writers." (Literary Review)
"'As good a psychological thriller as it is possible to get." (Sunday Express)
What listeners say about 1979
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- crochetdiva
- 23-08-21
Brilliant storyline
It's not often I see a story about newspaper reporters, but this is a very good one. With strong characters, and backbiting story pinchets, this story moves on apace. Some gory murders, and great reporting. This is one not to miss. Very well narrated
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ms Sheila Cameron
- 25-04-22
Great story, irritating narration
Excellent story but I was irritated by the consistent mispronunciation of the common enough Scottish name 'Farquhar' as 'Farkwar'. It astonishes me that Audible don't make more of an effort to check pronunciations, even by running the recording past the author before publishing it. Sorry, Val, but this is a regular feature of your audiobooks that needs improving.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- T. Wilson
- 21-11-22
I’m sorry, not for me
I love Val McDermid’s books but I just couldn’t get on with this one. It was a combination of a slow story and dreadful narration. The narrator has a very strong Scottish accent, which is lovely and gentle but totally unintelligible in many places. She also puts on voices for the characters but somehow manages to make every character sound exactly the same - just a higher or lower pitch. Not good. One of the very few Audible books I’ve returned for a refund.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- DR
- 16-02-22
Narration ruins it
I found it hard to enjoy the story because the narration was so disappointing - Monotonous, irritating inflection, mispronunciations. Find it hard to judge the novel because of this. Nice sense of the period but quite slow and not gripping in the way Val McD can achieve.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Donna B
- 15-11-21
Enjoyed it
Enjoyable listen. I liked the moral ambiguity of the two main characters. Most of Ms McDermid’s nooks are good against evil. Allie Burns is neither, she helps create the very crimes she writes about.
Also liked the reminders of the differences between now and 1979. Somebody looks for a public phone, newspaper cuttings are on paper and stored in a vast filing system, you couldn’t find a suspect’s details on Facebook back then,
an old hot metal paper printing press.
I liked the narrator’s voice, but I’m not Scottish.
Overall, a good story.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Gizmo Walpole
- 19-09-21
Poor narration
Really wanted to enjoy this, but I struggled with the narration and was relieved when it ended to be honest.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Phil Smart
- 25-08-21
Slow and predictable
I liked the characters, McDermid’s writing style and the period details. However I found the book slow going and bit predictable. I found myself listening at 1.5x speed and skipping whole chapters and not really missing anything. I’d not only guessed what was going to happen, but who was going to do it pretty early on. I didn’t guess the motive, although that felt like it had been tacked on during editing as a complete after thought to provide a plot twist, but it was just clumsy.
It’s not a murder mystery, it’s a book about a journalist and someone is killed at the end, by the person who you suspected all along.
The narrator is good, although the editing is a bit odd. Every now and then there are large pauses where I found myself wondering if my phone was dead.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Scottydog
- 05-10-22
Really loved it.
possibly first book by Val mcdermid I've listened to. Won't be the last. I was really gripped. Thought the narrator was very good too.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dee
- 23-11-23
slow to start but worth persevering
I was a little unsure at first as I found it a slow start for me personally. I'm so glad I persevered because I really loved the story and characters. I'm looking forward to starting the next installmen which I believe is called 1989. Thanks for another great read/listen.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jaybeetee
- 14-09-21
Enjoyment spoiled by poor narration.
Val McDermid always writes a good yarn, and I have read most of those she has written. I think this is the first one I have listened to, and it was spoiled for me by mispronunciations, wrongly placed emphasis, and worst of all, an execrable attempt at a Belfast accent. I think in future I will stick to reading her books
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2 people found this helpful