Heatwave

A rich examination of the cultural and political upheaval in Britain in the boiling hot summer of 1976

'John L. Williams grippingly captures the three months that shook Britain's cultural landscape in 'Heatwave'. His use of highly entertaining and often devastating stories about the febrile atmosphere of 1976's extraordinarily hot summer, show how simmering community unrest, in a newly multicultural Britain, reached boiling point with the heavy-handed policing of the youth at the Notting Hill Carnival.'

John L Williams is a biographer, novelist, and crime writer from Cardiff. His non-fiction includes his much-acclaimed biography of the Trinidadian polymath CLR James, and his account of the Cardiff Three miscarriage of justice case, Bloody Valentine ('A bloody good book' - Benjamin Zephaniah), as well as his enduringly popular portrait of urban America as seen through the prism of crime fiction, Into The Badlands . His biography of his fellow Cardiffian Shirley Bassey was proclaimed the music book of the year by The Times . He is the crime fiction reviewer for The Mail on Sunday . He is the co-founder and literary director of the Laugharne Weekend Festival in west Wales. The one single recorded by his punk band, The Puritan Guitars, is surprisingly collectible.