One of the main things I will take from reading this book, and this is why I think it will do well and become an important read, is that comparing the 70s and 80s with the now, it appears that not much has really changed, and that's very sad. Politics, music, police corruption, institutional racism and the power of protest all take centre stage in a novel that traces the roots of our current political moment. R.F. Kuang, Sue Lynn Tan, Rebecca Ross, Kate Heartfield, N.E. Davenport, Saara El-Arifi, Juno Dawson and Sunyi Dean One of the things I did like about the book was the way that the author managed to weave fiction into fact almost seamlessly. The story the book is telling is set firmly within the era and all that happened therein. A lot of the characters are real people and have been portrayed, to the best of my knowledge, with good accuracy. The political landscape has also been (again to my knowledge and experience) faithfully presented, in all its brutal reality. Warts and all. White Riot is an electrifying novel of politics, the counterculture, and music as a powerful force. In Suzi Scialfa, Thomas has given us a pioneering character - a female journalist, forging her way in a man's world; you believe in her, root for her, want to hear more. I loved this book -- Laura Barton

White Riot by Joe Thomas | Goodreads White Riot by Joe Thomas | Goodreads

Thomas’s fiction draws on archive material, testimonies and newspaper reports from 1978-83, in particular the events surrounding the unsolved killings of two men of colour in east London. Through the stories of Altab Ali, who was stabbed to death in Whitechapel, and Colin Roach, who allegedly shot himself in Stoke Newington police station, White Riot unfolds as a propulsive crime novel. Thomas ably captures local community anger, interracial tensions and especially the foreboding atmosphere around anti-fascist marches that led to violent clashes with NF skinheads and thuggish Special Patrol Group police. In the melee, there’s the “thump of bats on slabs of meat, the crunch of deadened limb, of nose and cheek, and broken glass”.A timely, powerful and gorgeously readable novel that represents everything that is good and important about the crime fiction genre' Irish Times

White Riot by Joe Thomas review – racial tensions in Thatcher

BRAZILIAN PSYCHO is a riveting and explosive masterpiece of political crime fiction that deserves to share the shelf with AMERICAN TABLOID, THE POWER OF THE… In 1983 Noble is sent to Stoke Newington where a young man has died in suspicious circumstances and he is tasked with investigating the death. The first part of a proposed United Kingdom Trilogy, White Riot is a timely, powerful and gorgeously readable novel that represents everything that is good and important about the crime fiction genre. It covers a lot of hard hitting subjects and it does this very well. No over the top sensationalising, well, to be honest, it was brutal enough without! The novel weaves fact and personal testimony into a fictional account of the period, focusing on a number of fictional characters from the worlds of music, politics and policing as they respond to real events.Gripping . . . Deeply moving . . . A love letter to London, seething with outrage, that leads you keen to read its planned sequels -- Mark Sanderson * The Times * Unfortunately the book feels like a generic police procedural, albeit with a sympathetic, left leaning political stance. None of the vitality or excitement of the music of the Punk era really imbues itself into the text, despite references to The Jam and other bands of the period. I learnt a lot reading this book, and feel that the author did a superb job of blending real life events/ history with his fictional storylines. All the characters in this novel are interesting and engaging and I really liked how we switch from one POV to another frequently (something I don’t usually like in a novel but that worked SO well for this story, trust me)! The prose style felt fresh and unique and the pacing was honestly phenomenal. I literally flew through this book, I could barely put it down. Live Aid, July 1985. The great and the good of the music scene converge to save the world. But the TV glitz cannot disguise ugly… The novel segues into an extended character study of Viviana, “a mixed-race woman who doesn’t bow her head in submission”, as de Campos explores Brazilian attitudes to race, class, prostitution and women. It’s a classic bait-and-switch: having lured us into the story with a conventional tale of a reluctant amateur sleuth, de Campos delivers a polemic against patriarchal privilege that somehow believes, despite perpetrating “crimes of kidnap, assault, false imprisonment, attempted femicide and some others”, that it is still entitled to justice.

White Riot: The Sunday Times Thriller of the Month : Thomas White Riot: The Sunday Times Thriller of the Month : Thomas

MyHome.ie (Opens in new window) • Top 1000 • The Gloss (Opens in new window) • Recruit Ireland (Opens in new window) • Irish Times Training (Opens in new window) The plotting is tremendous and highly engaging, with a style somewhat reminiscent of David Peace’s Red Riding novels. The first in a proposed trilogy, which is a mouth watering prospect. The story itself is decent enough and was made interesting for me because it covers history that I lived through. The book is the first of a trilogy. I suspect that, if the non-sentences and trip details were removed, the trilogy would make one good book. White Riot is an electrifying novel of politics, the counterculture, and music as a powerful force. In Suzi Scialfa, Thomas has given us a pioneering character - a female journalist, forging her way in a man's world; you believe in her, root for her, want to hear more. I loved this book." - Laura Barton Guardian Best Book of 2020 Irish Times Best Crime Fiction of 2020 Times Book of the Month Mail on Sunday Thriller of the Month The…

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White Riot: The Sunday Times Thriller of the Month (United White Riot: The Sunday Times Thriller of the Month (United

If you're interested in the era and specifically the music, politics, corruption and racism, then don't hesitate. I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy. A timely, powerful and gorgeously readable novel that represents everything that is good and important about the crime fiction genre’ Irish Times One of the things I didn't like was that the book does contain a fair bit of what I would consider to be unnecessary padding. Stuff that does nothing to set the scene or progress the narrative. Since finishing I have realised that this is not the end of the story - I believe it is part one of a trilogy - and I think that maybe the author wanted to end the story where her did and maybe needed an injection of word count to pad out this part? Speculation on my part, just my thoughts. Suffice to say, it could have been trimmed and would have lost nothing apart from having dragged in places. I’m glad I did read the way through. It’s frightening to see how far we have not come. How little has really changed and how still the government is essentially the same no matter who’s at the head of it. A timely, powerful and gorgeously readable novel that represents everything that is good and important about the crime fiction genre' Irish Times 1978: The National…

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Police and thieves, punks and spycops. White Riot captures the raw energy of the times in spectacular fashion, evoking a visceral narrative of power and corruption -- Jake Arnott