There’s an admiring portrayal of Paul Weller, representing the socially conscious musicians who come together in the Rock Against Racism movement.

White Riot | Joe Thomas | 9781529423372 | NetGalley White Riot | Joe Thomas | 9781529423372 | NetGalley

This book is a classic slow burn with just enough in between the pages to keep the reader hungry for more. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. Perhaps it’s asking too much of the form, but for a crime novel that is also cast as a critique of the silencing of the lived experiences of those at the blunt and brutal end of police and racist violence, the characters of south Asian and Caribbean descent are thinly drawn.His sense of humour, however, is an acquired taste – it is no exaggeration to say there’s about three puns on every page, few of them worthy of the space. Exploring the tensions between the growing National Front movement and the local ethnic communities surrounding Brick Lane and the borough of Tower Hamlets. This is Thatcher's Britain now, a new world that Noble unwittingly helped to usher in, where racial tensions are weaponised by those in power. It begins at the Rock Against Racism concert in Hackney, 1978, and ends at the Poll Tax Riots of 1990.

Arcadia snaps up ‘supercharged’ London crime trilogy by Thomas

Joe Thomas takes on the inflammable end of the Seventies, when Rock Against Racism took the National Front head on and Margaret Thatcher turned the Winter of Discontent into her own Springtime . The story itself is decent enough and was made interesting for me because it covers history that I lived through. The reader cannot help but compare the events in the novel to the divided, unequal society we now live in. Thomas has written a hell of an opening stanza here and I hope the next instalment is not too far behind.One year on, with Falk back in Marralee to act as godfather to Greg and Rita’s new baby, the local police mark the anniversary of Kim’s disappearance with an appeal for information, reigniting Falk’s interest in the case. The drag queens bitchily refer to Fi as “Hagatha Christie” when she starts investigating Eve’s death. There are some moments where it seems to lag a bit and I've knocked it down to 4/5 stars purely for that. The trilogy is an alternative history of the London Borough of Hackney, where Joe was born, set during the rise and fall of Thatcher, covering politics, music, true crime, police corruption, institutional racism, and the power of counter-cultural protest.