Adrian McKinty: Rain Dogs (Detective Sean Duffy)

Another locked door mystery during "The Troubles"
Adrian McKinty is a master storyteller of thrillers set in Northern Ireland. This book is #5 of his splendid fictional representations of  "The Troubles" in Northern Island in the 1980's through the eyes of Detective Inspector Sean Duffy, a Catholic policeman in the predominantly Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Duffy is a first class detective whose character is flawed by what is happening around him. One day he will be chasing common criminals and the next day he will be heartbroken when he is co-opted for riot duty and faces mobs throwing bricks and petrol bombs. His car is never safe and he checks for a bomb every time he drives it.

This time, Duffy is faced with a locked-door mystery similar in many ways to one that he faced a couple of years back. A female English journalist reporting on a visit by a team of Scandinavian businessmen is found dead having fallen/jumped/been pushed from the top of Carrickfergus castle. At first sight, it looks like suicide but Duffy isn't satisfied. The puzzle is that the journalist entered the castle the previous evening and it had been locked tight during the night and there appears to be no way that any killer could have got away.

Then a seemingly disconnected disaster happens when a senior policeman is killed by a bomb hidden under his car. Duffy had great respect for him and grapples with trying to work out the reason for the bomb.

McKinty shows off his storytelling skills when he includes a couple of cameo appearances by Killian who in later life stars in a very different but similarly enthralling thriller FALLING GLASS. Killian is not your average Irish thug, he was brought up as a Parvee, the Irish equivalent of a gypsy, and despite his violent background is a thug with a heart.

RAIN DOGS is the latest in this compelling series set against authentic background of "The Troubles". All of this series are highly recommended to discerning readers of police thrillers.

Adrian McKinty: Falling Glass

Adrian McKinty - Master Storyteller
I have read several thrillers in the Detective Sean Duffy series by Adrian McKinty's set in and around Belfast during "The Troubles". This book was a little different as most of the main characters come from the other side of the track.

Killian has been trying to make a better life for himself after years as a minor criminal and thug, especially during the times of The Troubles. When his property investments leave him in debt he is drawn back into doing one last job to improve his fortunes. A contact from his past offers him a very well paying job - to find the divorced wife of a multi-millionaire who has taken off with his two daughters.

Killian has a different background to the average Irish thug. He was brought up as a Parvee, the Irish equivalent of a gypsy. Killian left them a long time ago, but their rules and ethics are still part of his nature. The job brings out the best and worst in Killian when he finds that he sympathises with the ex-wife and struggles to find the best solution for the young woman and her children.

Things get worse when the issue gets wider than a search for the children and a brutal Russian enforcer is hired to take over from Killian. Everyone is now in danger and Killian must do his best to protect the people that he was hired to find.

This is a complex book, both in terms of plot and characters. Some parts are extremely violent and not for the fainthearted (and are probably unnecessary). McKinty's love for Northern Ireland and its people shines through.

This is a book with lots of emphasis on honour, duty, love, courage and revenge. It is the work of a master storyteller writing about people and places that he understands and loves. I recommend it to the discerning readers who appreciate good literary fiction as part of their enjoyment of well-plotted and atmospheric thrillers.

I listened to this as an audiobook narrated by Gerard Doyle. This was a first-class listening experience and made the book even more enjoyable because of his authentic Irish accents.

Adrian McKinty, Stuart Neville: Belfast Noir

Stories from a really noir city
This is a collection of fourteen short stories set in and around the City of Belfast. I read somewhere that even when the sun is shining there is a grey aura around the city - these stories all encapsulated some of that aura.

The stories are varied and while some hark back to the IRA/Protestant "Troubles" of the 1980's they don't really concentrate on that era. They cover a wide range of lowlifes produced by the grey city and its heritage, including convicts, prostitutes, blackmailers, private eyes, reporters and even a fighting dog breeder.

My favourite stories were about:

~ A member of the IRA who had to drive a hearse and coffin , with unknown contents, over the border from Ireland and was scared stiff that the coffin might explode on the way.

~ A teenage girl who had a crush on her Spanish teacher and managed to get him dismissed.

~ A man who took a Polaroid photo of the lady-of-the-house which he stuck in the coin-operated electricity meter to give constant supply. Most times because the lady didn't have any spare money he took his payment in kind.

I read this collection of stories as an audiobook, which really enhanced my enjoyment because of the great local Irish accents used by the narrators. I read it during my morning walks so I could finish many stories in one session. I am not normally a short story reader but I do recommend this collection, especially if you can have it read to you with authentic accents as an audiobook.

Adrian McKinty: The Sun is God

An unusual but gripping story by Adrian McKinty
I normally expect Adrian McKinty's stories to be thrillers set in Northern Ireland and was surprised to find that this story was set in German New Guinea, near modern-day Rabaul, in the early 1900's. It featured a strange cult group of mostly German nudist sun worshipers. To make it even stranger they only ate coconuts and bananas (because they grew at the top of trees so were closer to the sun) and sunbathed their days away in a stupor after drinking a cocktail of coconut milk and powdered heroin at breakfast.

Will Prior, a former British military policeman, has retired to German New Guinea after a traumatic incident keeping control of a South African concentration camp. His new found tranquility is disturbed when the German authorities recruit him to investigate the death of one of the cult members, Max Lutzow, on the remote island of Kabakon. The cult members insist that he died from malaria but an autopsy suggests that the death was from other causes.

Prior, a German officer and a middle-aged single Englishwoman, visit the island to investigate. They are immediately thrust into the middle of the cult's day-to-day life and diet (including the coconut cocktail), meeting with constant denials of any wrongdoing in Lutzow's death. Eventually when Prior starts to flush out the truth things get pretty tense.

This was the first audio book that I have listened to and I enjoyed the experience during my morning walks and car journeys.  If I had read the book I think that I might have given up because it was not what I expected from McKinty. The narrator, Gerald Doyle, did a great job in turning what could have been a fairly unexciting story into something pretty absorbing.

Andrew McKinty: Gun Street Girl: Sean Duffy 4

More big "Troubles" for Sean Duffy
Adrian McKinty's has written another in his splendid fictional representations of  "The Troubles" in Northern Island in the 1980's through the eyes of Detective Inspector Sean Duffy, a Catholic policeman in the predominantly Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary.

While Duffy is a first class detective his character is flawed by what is happening around him. He checks every morning to make sure that there is no bomb underneath his car. When, all too frequently, riots break out he quits his detective work, dons a bullet-proof jacket, helmet and face-shield and goes out in an armoured Land Rover to face the riot, dodging bricks and petrol bombs thrown by both sides in the conflict. All of this takes a toll and Duffy is so stressed out at the end of the day that he needs a pint or two of vodka gimlet to make him relaxed enough to get a good night's sleep.

Duffy takes on a case where a wealthy couple are shot dead and then their son, who may have killed them, apparently commits suicide by jumping off a cliff. Duffy is not convinced by that scenario and takes a close look the son's life and relations with his parents and people associated with the son. He finds that the son had a keen interest in guns in College and had made many contacts in the gun industry. Slowly, through diligent police work, Duffy finds himself embroiled in a case of lost missiles systems, a shady American with powerful connections and a dangerous member of the Ulster Freedom Fighters.

There is a brief episode when Sean meets up again with enigmatic, beautiful, powerful and super-intelligent Kate Albright, the MI5 head of station in Belfast who he had helped to track down IRA bombers during IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE. Kate still wants to recruit Duffy but puts this on hold until he closes his current case. The book title relates to Kate's home in Gun Street on the mainland, where Kate and Sean have their closest personal encounter.

On its own this is a great police procedural, but combined with the background of "The Troubles" and actual events the book is a masterly historical action fiction thriller. Knowing that McKinty bases his plots around actual events I was looking for a connection to major historical events at that time. I couldn't work out what they were going to be and they really surprised me when they became evident. The final event was traumatic and will have a big impact on any further books that Mckinty may write in this series.

When McKinty started this series it was billed as a trilogy but I understand that his fans persuaded him to write another one. I am so pleased that he did as it adds some more perspective to "The Troubles" and showcases an author at the top of his form. This book is already in my list of top reads for 2015.

Adrian McKinty: In the Morning I'll be Gone: Sean Duffy 3

Seamless mixture of fiction with actual history
Adrian McKinty's Sean Duffy series set in "The Troubles" in Northern Island in the 1980's is one of the best fictional representation of those terrible times. Once again we follow Sean Duffy, who chose to join the police because he felt that would help end The Troubles more than joining the IRA.

Duffy is an excellent detective but he is prepared to go off-road to solve crimes which doesn't enamour him to his superiors. In the previous book in the series I HEAR SIRENS IN THE STREET he gets their ire when he upsets both his superiors and the FBI when investigating the Delorean factory and possible drug trafficking. Duffy got demoted from Detective Inspector to Sergeant and moved to normal duties and at the start of the book he is so depressed that he accepts early retirement on full pension.

Despite this Duffy has contacts that don't forget his skills and also know that he was a good friend of one of the top IRA bomb builders who was one of the 38 IRA prisoners who escaped from the top security Maze jail in 1983. There are rumours that his old "friend" has been trained in advanced bomb-making skills in Libya which he could use to upgrade the IRA terror campaign. Duffy strikes a hard bargain to get back into the police force to find his "friend" before he can do irreparable damage.

The story is a mixture of fascinating insights into the minds of IRA terrorists and a clever police procedural investigation into an accident/possible murder of someone related to the escaped terrorist. McInty seamlessly mixes IRA terrorism with a murder plot and directs Duffy's investigations towards  one of the IRA's major bombing campaign.

McKinty has again written a great story set in authentic and dangerous times, probably even better than the previous books in the series. Sean Duffy is a fascinating but flawed character and I would love to see what happens to him after his adventures in this book. McKinty originally planned this series as a trilogy but by popular demand he has now written another in the series GUN STREET GIRL to be released in Australia in early January 2015 and in the US in early March 2015. I am really looking forward to that book where Duffy gets mixed up with gun runners, arms dealers, the British government, a rogue American agent with a fake identity and MI5. Sounds a great plot.

Adrian McKinty: I Hear Sirens in the Street

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More troubles for Sean Duffy
This is second book in the Sean Duffy detective trilogy set in "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s. This is gritty stuff in an authentic setting full of danger from all parties, the IRA, the Protestants and even the police and MI5.

After his successes in #1 in the trilogy, Sean Duffy has been promoted to Detective Inspector in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. While Duffy's job as a detective is to investigate crime there are rarely any normal criminals in Northern Ireland at that time who don't have some kind of connection to "The Troubles".

When Duffy checks out a bloody trail in an abandoned factory that leads to a rubbish skip he is stunned to find a suitcase oozing blood and inside a man's headless naked torso cut off at the knees and shoulders. He is even more stunned when the pathologist tells him that the man had been poisoned, dissected and frozen for some time.

Where do you start with such a case? Duffy is a very methodical detective and has a major clue, a tattoo on the dead man's back "No sacrifice is too great" which Duffy quickly tracks down as being part of the motto of the US Army's First Infantry Division. This starts a hunt for the disappearance of a fairly recent US visitor to Northern Ireland. Although not many people consider Northern Ireland as a tourist destination at that time there are still hundreds of visits to check out and Duffy and his other detectives don't get much help from the Americans. As the investigation proceeds the inevitable links to the parties to the Troubles come up, including another murder of a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment.

While this is a great crime thriller it is the authentic setting and the character of Sean Duffy, a Catholic in a predominantly Protestant police force living a life in what is virtually a war zone, which are my main attraction to the series. His work is dangerous - machine gunned and petrol bombed during riot patrol in an armoured Land Rover - and even at home he is visited at 2am by his Catholic neighbours wearing balaclavas. His girl friend has left him to work as a pathologist for a safer climes in Scotland and for a while he takes solace in his speciality cocktail - a pint of vodka gimlet, half vodka, half lime juice.

Sean Duffy is a compelling detective because he is prepared to go "off-road" to solve cases when he gets nowhere with conventional methods. In the first book in the series THE COLD COLD GROUND he gets a Queen's Medal and promotion for his efforts. This case is more complex and dangerous and may not get the same commendation. I highly recommend this series for readers wanting something different in crime/detective stories and I look forward to reading the last book in the trilogy IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE.

Adrian McKinty: The Cold Cold Ground (Detective Sean Duffy 1)

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The Heart of the Northern Ireland troubles
Several people advised me to read Adrian McKinty's books and I wasn't disappointed. This is the first book in the Sean Duffy series set in Northern Ireland during the worst times of "The Troubles" between the IRA and the Protestant groups. His writing has a sharp driving force that keeps your attention, his characters and settings are gritty and the action can be fast and furious.

 McKinty gives us amazing descriptions of Northern Ireland in 1981, the seedy desperate housing estates on both sides, the hunger strikes in The Maze prison, car bombs, and enforcers on both sides specialising in knee capping and assassination. Children's homework includes learning how to make and throw Molotov cocktails. The Catholics hate the Protestants and they all hate British forces, Special Branch and especially the local police - the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).

Sean Duffy is an enigma, a Catholic university graduate sickened by the conflict who decided to join the predominantly Protestant RUC. He is good at what he does and has solved several murders but hasn't been able to prosecute because nobody is prepared to risk becoming a witness. In a world of murders and assassinations connected with The Troubles, Sergeant Duffy investigates a couple of deaths which at first sight don't appear to be connected with the troubles. One appears to be a sadistic murder of a homosexual man with IRA connections and the other appears to be hanging suicide of a young woman, divorced from one of the hunger strikers, who disappeared under strange circumstances several months before.

Duffy methodically investigates each case, intruding into dangerous territory and talking to dangerous people to try to make sense of the cases. Every time his squad go into the notorious Falls Road area they full riot gear, and go fully armed in an armoured Land Rover.

Sean is a lonely man, living in the middle of a Protestant estate, drowning his sorrows in a vodka gimlet (a pint glass with half lime juice and half vodka) each evening. His romantic endeavours with Laura Cathcart, the local pathologist, start off well and then finish up in a heap. He is persistent with the cases but as soon as he starts to get a grip on what is happening the cases are taken away from him.

This is all great stuff for a police procedural set in authentic and dangerous times. I enjoyed the book, but was a bit iffy about the pretty over-the-top and unbelievable finale. But it left Sean Duffy in a position to come back in two more books in the trilogy which I look forward to reading.