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The Complete Richard Allen
Second anthology of pulp fiction at its finest. This is one with/for the ladies, with Skinhead Girls, Sorts, and Knuckle Girls.
- GenresFiction
288 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1993
About the author
Richard Allen
30 books38 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
'Richard Allen' is the name on the front cover of the million-selling Skinhead books. The name was thought of by the editors at the London publishing firm New English Library and given by them to Jim Moffatt, one of a number of hack writers who churned out their books to order.
Born of Irish extraction, Jim Moffatt went to Britain and learnt his trade writing up to six stories a week (thrillers, spies, Westerns) for pulp fiction magazines. He moved on to writing books, and by the mid-seventies reckoned he had produced 250 in the previous 20 years, at a rate of 10,000 words a day when deadlines were approaching. Meanwhile, the managing director of the ailing New English Library imprint was desperate to make inroads into a new audience of younger readers; his editorial board came up with the idea of commissioning a novel set in the emerging skinhead subculture. In six days Moffatt wrote Skinhead. The book was an immediate hit, and many of its youthful readers were convinced that the author was a real hooligan, not a 55-year-old Canadian who always wore a jacket and tie and whose lurid tales of sex and street violence were written from the same seafront cottage in Sidmouth in which he also penned a column for the local paper. Soon after Skinhead Farewell Moffatt's real-life relationship with NEL came to an end.
Moffatt died of cancer in the early nineties, just at the time when the skinhead style was coming back into fashion.
'Richard Allen' is the name on the front cover of the million-selling Skinhead books. The name was thought of by the editors at the London publishing firm New English Library and given by them to Jim Moffatt, one of a number of hack writers who churned out their books to order.
Born of Irish extraction, Jim Moffatt went to Britain and learnt his trade writing up to six stories a week (thrillers, spies, Westerns) for pulp fiction magazines. He moved on to writing books, and by the mid-seventies reckoned he had produced 250 in the previous 20 years, at a rate of 10,000 words a day when deadlines were approaching. Meanwhile, the managing director of the ailing New English Library imprint was desperate to make inroads into a new audience of younger readers; his editorial board came up with the idea of commissioning a novel set in the emerging skinhead subculture. In six days Moffatt wrote Skinhead. The book was an immediate hit, and many of its youthful readers were convinced that the author was a real hooligan, not a 55-year-old Canadian who always wore a jacket and tie and whose lurid tales of sex and street violence were written from the same seafront cottage in Sidmouth in which he also penned a column for the local paper. Soon after Skinhead Farewell Moffatt's real-life relationship with NEL came to an end.
Moffatt died of cancer in the early nineties, just at the time when the skinhead style was coming back into fashion.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 13, 2026
Skinhead Girls - 2.5/5: A really disjointed novel, bouncing back and forth between the past and present of skinhead turned suedehead Joan with no real justification, but enjoyable enough nonetheless. Obviously derivative of Skinhead and Suedehead, but criticising an Allen novel for derivativeness is clearly oxymoronic. It reads more as a series of vignettes, many of which are fun and typically sleazy (hippie bashing reprise, Brian’s run-in with an ambitious reporter, Joan’s upper class floozy (in the vein of the Stranglers’ Duchess), and I particularly liked the references to my native Cheltenham) but the whole is really less than the sum of its parts here. It never truly lives up to the blurb - Joan doesn’t return to the skinhead life, she only reminisces about it - and the ending is a total damp squib.
Sorts - 3.5/5: A much better novel with a standard linear narrative. Allen sticks to his themes and settings admirably - the lecherous businessman/moral crusader and teenage prostitute murdered by a drug-crazed hippy. Allen’s conservative politics are even stronger than usual - praises for Enoch Powell are commonplace from his characters, but the stereotyped scrounging hippies and firm righteous police force are so laughable that they read almost as a parody of conservative politics, especially Jock waxing lyrical about moral crusaders and how grateful he is to them. The folk festival setting is interesting and quite well drawn, adding some historical interest, and the interrogation sections were a good way of breaking up the prose. Fairly typical redemption ending.
Knuckle Girls - 3.5/5: Allen’s use of a frame narrative (Ina being interviewed by ‘social workers’ in the lead-up to her court case) works surprisingly well and allows for switches between past and present that keep the narrative moving at a fast pace, even if it is basically just a linked series of violent set-pieces. Thematically Knuckle Girls covers a lot of ground - aggro, football hooliganism, sexual exploitation and jealousy, prison, reform school, parental abuse, racism and psychiatry are all narrative fodder that Allen sprinkles liberally (unlike him!). Descriptions of violence are well done. One of his best, but probably just behind Skinhead Escapes and Sorts for me.
Sorts - 3.5/5: A much better novel with a standard linear narrative. Allen sticks to his themes and settings admirably - the lecherous businessman/moral crusader and teenage prostitute murdered by a drug-crazed hippy. Allen’s conservative politics are even stronger than usual - praises for Enoch Powell are commonplace from his characters, but the stereotyped scrounging hippies and firm righteous police force are so laughable that they read almost as a parody of conservative politics, especially Jock waxing lyrical about moral crusaders and how grateful he is to them. The folk festival setting is interesting and quite well drawn, adding some historical interest, and the interrogation sections were a good way of breaking up the prose. Fairly typical redemption ending.
Knuckle Girls - 3.5/5: Allen’s use of a frame narrative (Ina being interviewed by ‘social workers’ in the lead-up to her court case) works surprisingly well and allows for switches between past and present that keep the narrative moving at a fast pace, even if it is basically just a linked series of violent set-pieces. Thematically Knuckle Girls covers a lot of ground - aggro, football hooliganism, sexual exploitation and jealousy, prison, reform school, parental abuse, racism and psychiatry are all narrative fodder that Allen sprinkles liberally (unlike him!). Descriptions of violence are well done. One of his best, but probably just behind Skinhead Escapes and Sorts for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 9, 2020
Knuckle girls and sorts been the best here- and that's saying something. Skinhead girls is unreadable and all over the place. usual Moffat musings of sex and violence. Characters portrayed are just a little more likeable than Allen's hero of these stories which is Joe Hawkins. I do like the cover of this book though, as the girl Noelle Cutler in the photo (now deceased) apparently was selected as "Ms Skinbyrd 1990" by the Skinhead Times.
April 16, 2018
Set of novels full of shitty and funny situations of violence (aggro!), sex, crimes and a way of life that it is has portrayed from the female point of view. Suitable for passing your spare time.
January 30, 2012
It was a paperback of Knuckle Girls that I picked up last weekend in Oxfam, not this anthology, but this was the closest edition I could find. Complete trash but rather fun, and with an excellent cover.
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July 8, 2011"I ditched my nightdress and stood starkers as Brian got an eyeful... He folded the newspaper, deliberately rubbed his palms along his jeans."
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews