I loved the main character, the setting and the plot. The characters are very well developed. The book is full of twists especially toward the ending. It is a slow burn mystery.

1979 was an electric time for political conversations in Scotland with the bold notion of independence dividing opinions across the land. For a determined journalist like Allie, it’s hard to fight against the rising tide of sexism in her profession. Unearthing a big story could be the way to convince the dinosaurs that she’s worth more than they think. But digging out the truth has far-reaching consequences, that are more than anyone bargained for.

A new series by Val McDermid is always something to pique your curiosity, especially something with such an interesting concept of a different decade per title. I really liked the idea of the newspaper environment shining a light on the disparity of the times. It’s a time capsule of the various movements of the era spun around a captivating mystery and compelling characters.

I can’t wait to find out where the next book in the series will take us!

This was my first book by this author - I know!, I can't believe it either!! I don't know why but the idea of it being set in 1979 drew me to this story. It's based around newspaper journalists, Allie Burns and Danny Sullivan., who both work for the Glasgow Daily Clarion newspaper. They find themselves involved in investigating large scale international tax fraud and terrorist groups. The story was well planned, thought out and written, although, for me, it was a little slow through some of the investigations.

Allie Burns is a likeable character who I enjoyed seeing standing up for herself in the male dominated world of journalism. Her storyline reminded me of the image of policewoman of that era only being useful for making tea or patting hands. Similarly, Allie had to work hard to draw herself away from writing stories of babies being born. I'm a child of the 70's, but only being a young girl was oblivious to the stereotypes, misogynistic and homophobic views of that era. The author has done a great job of reliving the feelings and tension of this time and the research that went into this book was great.

It was a good and interesting read with plenty of twists and turns throughout. It felt dark, gritty and gloomy, just like I would imagine it to be. For me however, I did find the book a little slow at times, and I wasn't keen on the newspaper environment, although I did find it interesting how Allie and Danny worked their stories. Whilst this perhaps wasn't the best book for me to start me, I will definitely be reading more by this author.

It takes a brave author to start a new series of novels with a new protagonist when they are already 35 books into their career, but Val McDermid has done that here, and she has risen to the challenge admirably.

1979 introduces us to to Allie Burns, a young, inexperience but ambitious journalist try to make her way through the male-dominated and often misogynistic world of Glasgow tabloid journalism. McDermid's plan is follow Burns through five books, each set 10 years apart, and if the quality of 1979 is maintained through out, then it will certainly be a plan worth following.

It’s hard to criticise a Val McDermid book because her writing is so good so all the negative points are more about personal preferences. So I’m not a fan of books about journalists with no good reason just not my favourites I prefer crime stories to be led by police characters. . Then there’s when the book is set. Well obviously the 1970’s and again for me it’s an uninteresting period in fairly recent history. I do think it could have been set in the 2000’s and been better. I’m still giving four stars because of the quality of writing but I won’t be looking for the next one in the series.

1979, about a Glasgow journalist in the late '70s, feels very much inspired by Val McDermid's own experiences as, well, a Glasgow journalist in the late '70s. The main character is Allie Burns, young and ambitious, very aware of being a woman in a man's world, and not keen on being relegated to the "human interest" stories she's deemed suitable for. With her friend and colleague, investigative reporter Danny Sullivan, Allie strives to both seek truth and make a name for herself, first uncovering a tax scam and then a would-be terrorist plot, where Danny goes dangerously undercover.

It's a great read, steeped in the atmosphere, the politics, music and - more unusually - the crime fiction of the era. Allie listens to Elvis Costello and reads Laidlaw, Ruth Rendell's A Judgment in Stone, John le Carré's The Honourable Schoolboy - and Val McDermid's own 1979 playlist of songs while she wrote the book is appended. And contains some good stuff.

It's startling to realise just how long ago 1979 (the year I started secondary school) was. The story opens at the turn of the year: "It started badly and only got worse. Blizzards, strikes, unburied bodies, power cuts, terrorist threats and Showaddywaddy's Greatest Hits topping the album charts; 1979 was a cascade of catastrophe."

(And Thatcher's about to come to power later in the year. Yes, it gets worse.)

It's shocking now to realise, too, that in 1979 Scotland, unlike in England, gay sex was still illegal - that didn't change until 1980. And in a (just) pre-AIDS era, a gay character's reference to "the safest sex he could imagine" - anonymous and paid for - feels strangely poignant.

An excellent read and I look forward to the further adventures of Allie Burns.

I adore Val McDermid, i have read a lot of her thriller novels and so was super looking forward to this.
However, I was left really disappointed! This book was so slow - something I never would say about a Val McDermid book. Really slow, and a little too political for me.
In contrast to some of the reviews I have read, I actually enjoyed the opening to this book with the person giving birth. This intrigued me, but as the book progressed I became less and less interested.
I'm not sure if you would have had to live through the 1979 troubles for you to actually find this book interesting?
I didn't enjoy this book at all! I hate saying it, as I love McDermid, but I'm just going to forget that this book was written by her.

Another exciting tale from Val, 1979 follows Allie as she grapples with being a woman in the mail dominated world of Journalism. She teams up with Danny to expose a criminal aspect of an insurance business, which involves Danny's brother.

There is plenty of heart stopping drama throughout. Suspense and intrigue isn't in short supply either. In fact this is everything you would expect from Val.

Definitely a must read

Val McDermid is one of those writers whose work I purchase as soon as it's released in hardback and so I was thrilled to get the opportunity to receive this digital ARC. I was also excited to read what I hope is the first in a series featuring Scottish journalist and Cambridge graduate Allie Burns. Together with her colleague Danny Sullivan Allie investigates two cases- that of a terrorist plot by Scottish nationalists and a case of tax evasion. The strength of this novel for me was the portrayal of the experience of a being a woman journalist in 1970s Glasgow which the author has obviously based on her own experiences. McDermid also powerfully evokes the political situation of the time- a time of political discord and the last days of the Labour government before the rise of Thatcher. As usual the author's words effortlessly fall off the page and I was immersed in this over the course of a day. Highly recommended.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.

This has been my most anticipated release of the summer and, boy, what a debut for McDermid’s new female heroine, Allie Burns! I loved the setting, I loved the plot, and I loved that the main character in this brilliant crime thriller is not a detective but a rookie reporter with an eye on the big prize.

Allie is smart, sassy and ambitious. But she’s a young woman in a man’s world — the newsroom of a Glasgow tabloid — and she has to use all her nous to get taken seriously. When she stumbles across a home-grown terrorist plot, Allie joins forces with fellow hack, Danny, to infiltrate the group, expose its intent, and hopefully make her mark as an investigative journalist.

What impressed me most about this novel was how perfectly McDermid captures the social and political mood of late-1970s Scotland. The struggling economy, the festering dissent over Westminster rule and the growing devolution movement.

Equally resonant is the newspaper setting. The buzz of the newsroom, the sniff of a story, the frantic dash to meet copy deadlines. The drinking, the smoking, the banter. This is my era, my old stamping ground, and McDermid absolutely nails it.

McDermid sucks you into this world with practiced ease. Her plotting is meticulous, her character development steady and convincing. This is not a nail-biting, thrill-a-minute ride, but a perfectly paced narrative that dips and sways, rises and falls, before blindsiding you with a heart-stoppingly, unexpected twist. And it grips from start to finish.

This is easily McDermid’s best book in years, and all the more thrilling for it being the first in a series. I can’t wait to find out what Allie gets up to next.

Overall I enjoyed 1979, but I did have my reservations.

Set in Glasgow in January...er...1979, Allie Burns is a relatively new young journalist on a Scottish tabloid paper. A colleague brings her in on an investigative story which exposes them both to risk, and then Allie immediately sniffs out another major scoop involving dangerous undercover work and a serious risk of reprisal.

Allie is an engaging protagonist. She is perhaps a little implausibly 21st Century in her standing up to the laddish culture in the male-dominated newsroom of boozing, misogyny and sexism, but that culture is very well drawn and rings true to my memory of those times. Gay issues play an important role in the story and it is shocking to be reminded that as late as 1979 homosexual activity was still illegal in Scotland and that one could be prosecuted for it. (I looked it up and this didn’t change until 1981 which this English reader, who had plenty of gay friends at the time, found horrifying.) The atmosphere of the time is generally well evoked, but I did feel that Val McDermid was straining at it a bit. She has plainly done plenty of research, but it was rather too near the surface much of the time; people seemed to do a lot of explaining to each other what it was like in 1979, even though they were living in it, for example, and (with the exception of one Pink Floyd album) everyone was listening only to music and reading only books from that exact moment...and so on. I also thought that the plot plodded just a little, with rather too much sightly laboured exposition.

I expected a little better from such an experienced and rightly respected author. This was still a perfectly decent four-star read for me and I will certainly try the next in the series, but I hope that Val McDermid will be able to relax into the story and the period rather more and allow them to develop more naturally.

(My thanks to Little, Brown for an ARC via NetGalley.)

This is the first book in the Allie Burns series by author Val McDermid. I love the Karen Pirie series by Val McDermid so I was hoping for more of the same with this new series about an investigative journalist based in 1979.

Investigative journalist Allie Burns is based in Glasgow and is looking for the next big story to catapult her career forward. Allie is definitely suffering from being a woman in a mans and it is the norm for her to get the low profile stories to cover. In an effort to get a break in journalism she forms an alliance with colleague Danny Sullivan and sort out the bigger stories. But problems occur once the pair start digging into the more high profile cases and very quickly they are creating enemies. When you start investigating international tax fraud and terrorist groups there are always going to be more attention from less desirables and when Danny’s body is found murdered in his flat Allie’s life becomes so much more dangerous.

The series started very slow for me and struggled to really get into the story. I have enjoyed plenty of books by this author and would not write it off just yet because there were signs of hope for future books. As yet I don’t love the characters or feel any connection and also would have preferred series being modern day rather than 1979. Although I lived through the 70’s and understand the mood at the time I feel that many younger readers will fail to connect or simply prefer a more modern timeframe.

I would like to thank both Net Galley and Little Brown Book Group UK for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is a great start to a new series featuring Allie Burns, an investigative journalist in Glasgow. Set in a turbulent period of discontent, the author captures the mood of the winter of discontent with her well written and captivating account. It's a promising start and I look forward to seeing what's next in store for Allie. I would recommend the read. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

1979 is the first instalment in the Allie Burns series set against the bustling backdrop of 1970’s Glasgow. The story begins when we are introduced to Allie Burns, a young investigative journalist whose work leads her into a world of corruption, terror, and murder. It’s only January, and the year 1979 has already brought blizzards, strikes, power cuts, and political unrest. For Allie Burns, however, someone else’s bad news is the unmistakable sound of opportunity knocking, a chance to escape the “women’s stories” to which her editors at the Scottish daily The Clarion have confined her. Striking up an alliance with budding investigative journalist Danny Sullivan, Allie begins covering international tax fraud and a group of Scottish ultranationalists aiming to cause mayhem ahead of a referendum on breaking away from the United Kingdom. Their stories quickly get attention and create enemies for the two young up-and-comers. As they get closer to the bleeding edge of breaking news, Allie and Danny may find their own lives on the line.

Drawing on McDermid’s own experiences as a young journalist, 1979 is redolent of the thundering presses, hammering typewriters and wreaths of smoke of the Clarion newsroom. A journey to the past with much to say about the present, it is the latest pitch-perfect, suspenseful addition to McDermid’s crime pantheon. It's compulsive, enthralling and atmospheric and not only looks at crime and the gritty underbelly of the city but also touches on the changes there have been in technology, fashion, music, detection and the things we consume. The novel explores issues of class, gender, sexuality and politics alongside a high-stakes investigation into corruption and unrest in Glasgow in the Seventies. Allie’s story will be told in five instalments, each set a decade apart, tracking the changing state of Scotland’s criminal, social and political landscape, as well as this memorable protagonist’s life right up until 2019. A riveting, captivating and propulsive start to a series that shows a hell of a lot of promise. Highly recommended.

It’s the end of 1978 and Allie Burns is one of a few female journalists at the Glasgow Clarion newspaper. Spending her time writing fluffy stories of miracle babies. Women’s stories. Danny Sullivan, fellow journalist at the Clarion, may have uncovered a big story. A tale of money laundering and tax avoidance. He needs the help of Allie, she has the ability to write up a better story. As 1979 continues so does their journalistic partnership along with their friendship.

It was a well written novel that hooked me in at the start. Allie and Danny are likeable and well rounded characters. I did find the detail of the news stories a bit dry. But the last quarter of the book really picked up and hooked me back in. I’ll definitely read more from McDermid.

A change of direction for the great Val McDermid and, although it doesn't grip quite as tightly as her crime threads, it is a fascinating read. Based in the world of journalism, and specifically investigative journalism, it is firmly placed in the late 1970s, and the reference to events and music from that decade are nostalgic. If this is the beginning of a new series, I look forward eagerly to more.

As 1979 dawns, Allie Burns finds herself back in her native Scotland working as a junior reporter on The Clarion.
Allie wants to do investigative journalism but has three strikes against her, she's Cambridge educated, she has no contacts and she's a woman in a man's world.
Her friend and colleague, Danny, asks for her help with a tax fraud story which involves his own family..

Allie meanwhile, has stumbled across her own story involving extreme nationalists and seeks Danny's help in return.

This is a great tale of journalism in late 1970s Glasgow drawing upon McDermid's own experience of being a reporter in Glasgow at that time.

Pin Sharp…
Introducing Allie Burns, a journalist chasing a big story,in a 1970’s Scotland. Aware of the lack of women in her game, Allie needs to be taken seriously, she needs a scoop. Along with collegue Danny Sullivan, she is soon delving deep into the criminal underworld. With pin sharp writing, meticulous character development, a perfect sense of time and place not to mention an edge of seat storyline this is a cracking start to a new series with an enigmatic and fiery new protagonist.

Absolutely love Val McDermid books but found this one so long and drawn out. I am not a huge fan of journalists but the character of Allie seems a good one. #1979 #NetGalley

This is book one of a new series by this author, well known for the Tony Hill and Karen Pirie series of books. I have read and enjoyed books in both of her previous series but this book sadly fell a wee bit short for me.
It wasn't Allie. I really loved her as a character. How she developed and blossomed both as a character and a person along the way. I think it was probably the time in which the book was set that didn't quite work for me. The author didn't quite convince me it was 1979 by any means other than keeping throwing in records, tv programs, films, books, and celebrities of the era every so often to remind me. I found that to be a bit distracting and, on occasion, had me googling stuff just to try and catch her out. I didn't, by the way, but it did distract me somewhat as I was reading. Maybe it's cos I am just about old enough to remember the year, especially the music, I personally think that 1979 was the best year for music and it did have me reaching for my hits of 1979 compilation CD which was a nice bonus... but I digress...
Allie is a journalist, one of few women in a man's world, and is often overlooked, put upon, or gazumped. When we first meet her she is on a train, in a blizzard, coincidentally with fellow journalist Danny when a woman goes into labour... long story, and Allie does manage to keep hold of THIS story, short and she and Danny strike up an alliance when he subsequently shares a story of fraud with her and asks for her help with it. She in turn brings him in on her lead about unrest in the upcoming devolution referendum. Two stories which will catapult our duo into the limelight, and not wholly for the right reasons, as they are all too soon to discover when things take a bad turn...
Aside from my issues with the pop culture reference overload, I did really enjoy this book. The insight into the newspaper industry was interesting, especially as today the printed news is somewhat a dying industry. All that manual typing and carbon paper. Takes me back to my youth and my mother typing away in a similar fashion... I understand that the author was part of that scene in her own past and that side of things really did feel real.
The two main threads were also both well plotted and executed and held my attention well enough. When a certain incident happens towards the end of the book, it could refer back to either and so there was more to narrow down to figure out what actually happened. I did enjoy that side of things. Sorry for being oblique but I don't want to spoil things.
All in all, a good introduction to what looks like being a cracking new series, and indeed character who I think has a lot more to give. Looking forward to reconnecting with her in book two. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.