1979 (Allie Burns #1) by Val McDermid, Katie Leung (Narrator)

1979 is a slow burn of simmering tensions that finally explode as two reporters investigate insurance fraud on a massive scale and want to be terrorists planning their first round of bombing. Allie Burns is sitting at the bottom of the barrel in her newsroom, both because of her short time on the job but also because she's a women. It looks to be impossible to get past the barriers of being a woman but she is still determined to make her mark and make it impossible for the big guys to ignore her. She trusts almost no one in the newsroom because of the competitiveness and because of the way men treat women, on and off the job. She fumes every time she's told to get the coffee during a meeting or is sent out on the fluff stories while important ones, even those she may dig up herself, get taken away from her.

The one bright spot at work is Danny Sullivan, a wannabe investigative journalist, who brings international tax fraud to the table via a family member. Danny wants the big story so much that he takes huge, not quite legit, risks. But he's not the writer that Allie is and he asks her to put his story together. Allie is used to being the writer behind the bylines of many of the stories in the office. Her job isn't fair in many ways, including that she is required to do the writing for the guys who get the accolades. But Danny is different, he has never been rude or crude and Allie considers him a friend and even potentially something more.

Right on the heels of Danny's big story, Allie has a lead of her own and needs Danny's "maleness" to do the undercover work. This time the story concerns a potential Scottish terrorist group and Danny dives into character with his undercover investigative role, so much so that he inserts himself right in the middle of dangerous dealings. When Danny ends up dead, Allie is filled with guilt and anger, especially because she's the first person the police try to blame for his death. Now it's Allie who has to do the dangerous footwork to bring both stories to a close, with Danny as the sad side story, to both of them.

The audiobook is very good, although it took my ears a few minutes to adapt the accent and tone of the narration. But I adjusted quickly and the narration put me there in Scotland and the references to music, books, TV shows, and movies put me right into the time. I wasn't very familiar with the politics of Scotland, during this time period, and had no idea just how dangerous things were then.

Thank you to RB Media and NetGalley for this ARC.

McDermid takes readers back to the close of the 1970s; the good old days when misogyny and racism were an accepted fact of life. Journalist Allie Burns is already sick of 1979 and it’s only January, but the chaos of terrible weather and the breakdown of both political and labor groups has her thinking now might be the time to report real news, not human interest, or “women’s stories”. She joins forces with a new journalist, Danny Sullivan, and together they begin poking into some of the hottest stories of the time. Before long, the duo find themselves household names, as their careers take off, but as they soon discover, there’s a price to be paid for those stories, one that may be far too high. An intriguing start to a new series that brings back the days before cell phones, the internet and DNA.