1985 and whilst London hosts Live Aid, the city hides a lot of conflict. Suzi Scialfa is still reporting on music and news, she sees the formation of the Red Wedge, a group of artists with left wing views opposed to the Conservative government. Jon Davies is still trying to fight corruption and now his attention is drawn to abuse of power and the development of the London Docklands, particularly Wapping. Meanwhile unrest is growing in Tottenham after the death of a woman on the Broadwater Farm Estate. As Margaret Thatcher controls the country, London is close to explosion. This is the second book in a proposed trilogy and it is brilliant. I love the way Thomas takes actual events and people and weaves a narrative around them where fact and fiction are so close. His group of characters are believable and operate on the fringes in different areas but all have beliefs in right and wrong. The knowledge of events and the understanding of motives is excellent and this takes me back to my youth with all the cultural references that are pitch perfect.

Red Menace is the second in a planned trilogy of books by Joe Thomas covering events in the East End of London in the 1970s and the 1980s. It follows on from White Riot, and precedes the yet-to-be published True Blue. I was living in London at the time, and was aware as most of what was going on in Hackney. These events to me seem pretty recent, so much so that I had trouble just now when I entered Red Menace into the TripFiction database classifying it as ‘Historical Fiction’… BUY NOW The characters and some of the detailed events described in the book are fictitious, But very clearly Joe Thomas has done a great deal of painstaking research. The book has a ring of truth about it. It primarily covers the Broadwater Estate riots in Tottenham and the movement of ‘Fleet Street’ to Wapping – and the links between the two. It is a story of bent police planting and dealing in drugs, dodgy East End councils being manipulated by corrupt land developers, and the freezing out of the once all powerful print Trade Unions – set against a series of ‘politically inspired’ pop concerts culminating in Live Aid in 1985. It was a very different time. Though I am far from sure the black youth of North London feel any more supportive of the police now than they did then, or that corruption has been removed from the property development process. We used to think that such things were un-British – I’m not sure that we do any more. And world poverty hasn’t exactly gone away since Live Aid. Red Menace is an excellent and nostalgic trip down memory lane. The London of the day is well portrayed and the (fictitious) characters are well drawn and convincing.

Jon Davies and Suzi Scialfa have moved on since the inquest into the death of Colin Roach, but they're about to be drawn back into the struggle ­­­- Jon by his restless curiosity and Suzi by the reappearance of DC Patrick Noble. This is the second book in the trilogy. White Riot being the first. I found this a difficult read. Not because of the subject but because it was hard to keep track of what was really happening. I didn’t find the characters memorable as there is very little description of them. It doesn’t seem to have a rhythm but flits from scene to scene. It’s not for me.