Ten years later, Allie is now living happily with Rona Dunsyre, having relocated from Glasgow to Manchester, to begin their lives together as a couple.
Allie has given up her job as an investigative reporter to oversee a group of freelancers for a tabloid newspaper, Sunday Globe despite it being more interested in sensationalism and gossip than hard-hitting news stories.The book begins with Allie covering the memorial service for the families devastated by the recent Lockerbie bombing of Pan AM flight 103 and ends with Allie uncovering a horrific scandal decades in the making, as well as an expose on corruption in the field of AIDS research, the crumbling of the Eastern Bloc, and the senseless tragedy that occurred at Hillsborough Stadium, among others.
Both Allie and Rona are working for Wallace 'Ace' Lockhart, a Rupert Murdoch-like media mogul who once lost everything, then rebuilt himself to become a successful businessman, and will now protect his business and family, at any cost.Unlike most crime novels, 1989 does not follow just one case from beginning to the end. Instead, readers are treated to several events happening at the same time but are interconnected and a look at how society is altered not only by seismic events but also by smaller innocuous choices. Together with Allie, readers travel a path that is fascinating, flawed and ultimately redemptive.
In a fitting tribute to McDermid’s own past, 1989 contains multiple references to the expanding growth of female-led PI novels. As she did in 1979, the author also provides a playlist of music designed to transport readers back to the late 80s.
Themes of love, family ties, honour, prejudice, greed and avarice run through 1989 like blood through a vein, providing a pulse that drives the narrative along. The scent of newsprint and the clatter of typewriters served as a sensory backdrop to 1979. Unfortunately, both are missing here as time has moved on and so has the central character. This may dull the authenticity of parts of 1989, but McDermid’s description of the Hillsborough disaster more than makes up for it.