Hillsden Riots

A topical book, this - and one which explores the tensions between white and black communities in a realistic way. Jones begins courageously with a conversation entirely in street patois which, far from discouraging the reader with its unfamiliarity, sets the scene in the Black camp. Colin and Wayne, two Black brothers with attitudes to life at opposite ends of the spectrum, experience inner-city riots first-hand and emerge closer both emotionally and politically. Descriptions of the riots are factual and telling - it is the political standpoints imposed on the characters which disappoint. Colin is too much the pedant, Herald too unconvincing a revolutionary - it seems unlikely that the illiterate boy he is painted could have read and absorbed Ralph Ellison's (irritatingly misspelt 'Elliston') Invisible Man. Nevertheless, the book offers to third-year readers a carefully observed insight into the wrongs perpetrated by both black and white in troubled inner cities and may partially counteract the pious hysteria induced by the media.