David Peace's acclaimed Red Riding Quartet continues with this exhilarating follow-up to Nineteen Seventy-Four . It's summer in Leeds and the city is anxiously awaiting the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Detective Bob Fraser and Jack Whitehead, a reporter at the Post , however, have other things on their minds-mainly the fact that someone is murdering prostitutes. The killer is quickly dubbed the “Yorkshire Ripper” and each man, on their own, works tirelessly to catch him. But their investigations turn grisly as they each engage in affairs with the prostitutes they are supposedly protecting. As the summer progresses, the killings accelerate and it seems as if Fraser and Whitehead are the only men who suspect or care that there may be more than one killer at large. “David Peace is transforming the genre with passion and style.”—George Pelecanos“This is the future of British crime fiction. . . . Extraordinary and original.” — Time Out “Simply superb. . . . Peace is a masterful storyteller, and Nineteen Seventy-Seven is impossible to put down. . . . A must-read thriller.” — Yorkshire Post “Peace's powerful novel exposes a side of life which most of us would prefer to ignore.” — Daily Mail David Peace is the author of The Red Riding Quartet , GB84 , The Damned Utd and Tokyo Year Zero . He was chosen as one of Granta's 2003 Best Young British Novelists, and has received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the German Crime Fiction Award, and the French Grand Prix de Roman Noir for Best Foreign Novel. Born and raised in Yorkshire, he has lived in Tokyo since 1994. Chapter 1 Leeds. Sunday 29 May 1977. It's happening again: When the two sevens clash . . . Bunting unmarked rubber through another hot dawn to another ancient park with her secret dead, from Potter's Field to Soldier's Field, parks giving up their ghosts, it's happening all over again. Sunday morning, windows open, and it's going to be another scorcher, red postbox sweating, dogs barking at a rising sun. Radio on: alive with death. Stereo: car and walkie-talkie both: Proceeding to Soldier's Field. Noble's voice from another car. Ellis turns to me, a look like we should be going faster. 'She's dead,' I say, but knowing what he should be thinking: Sunday morning - giving HIM a day's start, a day on us, another life on us. Nothing but the bloody Jubilee in every paper till tomorrow morning, no-one remembering another Saturday night in Chapeltown. Chapeltown - my town for two years; leafy streets filled with grand old houses carved into shabby little flats filled full of single women selling sex to fill their bastard kids, their bastard men, and their bastard habits. Chapeltown - my deal: MURDER SQUAD. The deals we make, the lies they buy, the secrets we keep, the silence they get. I switch on the siren, a sledgehammer through all their Sunday mornings, a clarion call for the dead. And Ellis says, 'That'll wake the fucking nig-nogs up.' But a mile up ahead I know she'll not flinch upon her damp dew bed. And Ellis smiles, like this is what it's all about; like this was what he'd signed up for all along. But he doesn't know what's lying on the grass at Soldier's Field. I do. I know. I've been here before. And now, now it's happening again. 'Where the fuck's Maurice?' I'm walking towards her, across the grass, across Soldier's Field. I say, 'He'll be here.' Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Noble, George's boy, out from behind his fat new Millgarth desk, between me and her. I know what he's hiding: there'll be a raincoat over her, boots or shoes placed on her thighs, a pair of panties left on one leg, a bra pushed up, her stomach and breasts hollowed out with a screwdriver, her skull caved in with a hammer. Noble looks at his watch and says, 'Well, anyroad, I'm taking this one.' There's a bloke in a tracksuit by a tall oak, throwing up. I look at my watch. It's seven and there's a fine steam coming off the grass all across the park. Eventually I say, 'It him?' Noble moves out of the way. 'See for yourself.' 'Fuck,' says Ellis. The man in the tracksuit looks up, spittle all down him, and I think about my son and my stomach knots. Back on the road, more cars are arriving, people gathering. Detective Chief Superintendent Noble says, 'The fuck you put that sodding siren on for? World and his wife'll be out here now.' 'Possible witnesses,' I smile and finally look at her: There's a tan raincoat draped over her, white feet and hands protruding. There are dark stains on the coat. 'Have a bloody look,' Noble says to Ellis. 'Go on,' I add. Detective Constable Ellis slowly puts on two white plastic gloves and then squats down on the grass beside her. He lifts up the coat, swallows and looks up at me. 'It's him,' he says. I just stand there, nodding, looking off at some crocuses or something. Ellis lowers the coat. Noble says, 'He found her.' I look back over at the man in the tracksuit, at the man with the