Good Friday, 1977, Merthyr Tydfil. At twenty to midnight a dozen different forces converge - Macky, just out of jail; the gippos and their knives; the Shop Boys, fifty or sixty skinheads in fanatical pursuit of recreational violence; P. C. Phillips, the young copper with something to prove; Mohan Singh, proud owner of the Taj Mahal curry house. The result- mayhem. 'Race Riot Erupts in Valleys Town. Scores Injured.' And witness to it all, Davey Daunt, a spazzy with a leg brace, the only one who knows what really happened. Desmond Barry's highly acclaimed first novel The Chivalry of Crime was a brilliant evocation of the world of the ultimate outlaw, Jesse James. The outlaws in A Bloody Good Friday are closer to home but no less vividly brought to life.
