Fire Rush

This debut novel, set in the Caribbean community in London, Bristol and ultimately Jamaica as the seventies turn into the eighties, is the story of Yamaye, a young Black woman who lives for dancing at all night reggae sessions. She loses herself in the dark and the dub, finding an escape from a mundane and difficult life outside. And then she meets Moose, falls in love, and seizes the chance for contentment and satisfaction. But Babylon has other plans...

I'm a huge fan of Jamaican-inspired music, and this book is soaked in it. The words thrum and sing with horn stabs and skittering cymbals, and pulse with a deep slow bass throb. It's alive to music in a way so many books about the subject aren't (compare and contrast to Marlon James' ...Seven Killings, for instance, which for all its many other virtues is almost completely tone deaf, in a novel about Bob Marley of all people). There's a terrific rhythm to the language, as though it's being told to you in person. I don't usually do audiobooks but i'd love to hear this as one (with a dub underpinning, naturally).

The story is vivid and involving, with sharp characterisation and a living breathing cast you come to care about. When something nasty happens about a third of the way in, it's a proper gut punch. I'd read about the ANL and undercover cops, Linton Kwesi Johnson told me about sus laws and Misty In Roots about Babylon, but Ms Crooks' novel made me feel them. It's is an excellent debut, and I'm going to miss Yamaye. Hope she's okay.