1979
- Published
- 1 January 2021
- Pages
- 320
- ISBN-13
- 9780751583076
- Type
- novel
About this book
Val McDermid opened her decade-spanning Allie Burns series in 2021 with 1979, following a young Scottish journalist fighting for bylines at a Glasgow paper on the eve of Thatcherism as she stumbles onto a drug-trafficking and political-corruption story nobody wants published.
Key facts about 1979
Val McDermid wrote 1979, a novel on our list. It has been out since 2021. The book has 320 pages.
We list 3 editions of this novel. Since each edition has its own ISBN, search for 9780751583076 to find the main one.
1979 is book 1 of 2 in the Allie Burns series. The series has 2 published books. As a result, this is the book to start the series with.
Additionally, Val McDermid writes Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan and Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, plus 1 more series. Those series sit on our crime fiction shelf. Meanwhile, This Door of the Seas is the latest published Val McDermid book on file, from 6 August 2026.
About Val McDermid
Val McDermid is a Scottish crime writer whose career spans nearly four decades and five distinct series, making her one of the most prolific and structurally ambitious authors working in British crime fiction. See every Val McDermid book in order.
Its place in Allie Burns
1979 is book 1 in the Allie Burns series. It is followed by 1989. See the full Allie Burns reading order.
Val McDermid's newest series follows Allie Burns, a young Scottish journalist breaking into a newsroom that doesn't want her there, across a planned run of decade-spaced novels that double as a history of British investigative journalism from the late 1970s onward. 1979 opens with Allie fighting for bylines at a Glasgow paper on the eve of Thatcherism and stumbling into a story about drug trafficking and political corruption that nobody wants published; 1989 picks her up a decade later, further into her career…
Editions
- edition · unknown publisher · — · ISBN 9780751583076
- edition · unknown publisher · — · ISBN 9780751583083
- edition · unknown publisher · — · ISBN 9780751583090