Mark Bostridge

Dark days for Britain: London, Burning, by Anthony Quinn, reviewed

The National Front reaches its peak of popularity as IRA bombs terrorise the capital in this disturbing novel set in the late 1970s

The wreckage of Airey Neave’s car after the IRA bomb which killed him. Credit: Alamy 
issue 17 April 2021

Not long ago, a group of psychologists analysing data about national happiness discovered that the British were at their unhappiest in 1978. Reading Anthony Quinn’s enjoyable novel set in that year and early 1979, it’s not difficult to see why. In case you’ve forgotten, strikes were spreading like wildfire. The National Front were reaching a peak of popularity.

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