Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Royal Ulster Constabulary Inspector Sean Duffy returns in this follow-up to the Troubles trilogy. After a series of career-limiting turns, Duffy is struggling to find a path for himself where he'll make any kind of difference, what with Margaret Thatcher's plan for a slow withdrawal from Northern Ireland igniting a new phase in sectarian violence. When a wealthy couple is murdered just over the Carrickfergus side of the county border, Duffy's second-in-command, McCrabban, campaigns for asserting their jurisdiction. Duffy doesn't see the point but figures McCrabban deserves the bone and helps him win the territorial battle. It looks like an easy solve: the adult son who lives with the victims is suddenly missing, and it's common knowledge he's had some trouble with his dad. But, in 1985 Northern Ireland, a seeming case of domestic strife can just as easily mask a complex criminal web of arms smuggling, drugs, and covert operations, and it doesn't take Duffy long to point Crabby toward the telltale signs of a professional hit. Duffy is more introspective here, and while the Troubles trilogy featured strong characterization, series fans will appreciate the further insight into the fallout from tragic cases, department politics, and war. As usual, there's plenty of entertaining territorial battling between the dizzying array of law-enforcement agencies acting in Belfast, and Duffy's investigative skills seem somehow sharpened by his lost hope.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Fans of Ned Kelly Award-winner McKinty's Troubles trilogy (The Cold Cold Ground, etc.) will welcome this fourth outing for Sean Duffy, a Catholic detective for the Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary, in 1985 Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. Fighting internal forces on the one side and dealing with pressure from MI5 on the other, Duffy looks into the double murder of 22-year-old Michael Kelly's parents. Michael apparently jumped off a cliff to his death after shooting them in the family living room. True to police procedural form, Duffy keeps up the world-weary demeanor even when his investigation calls the initial causes of the murders and suicide into doubt. Though the precarious Northern Irish context adds color and McKinty has a flair for detail (Duffy has to check under his car for bombs every time he drives), Duffy's humdrum love affairs, with his one-dimensional romantic interests and McKinty's stock dialogue, only reinforce old clichés. Agent: Bob Mecoy, Creative Book Services. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Starred Review. It's 1985 in Northern Ireland and a wealthy couple is shot in their Belfast home. When their adult son is found at the foot of a nearby cliff, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) assume murder and suicide. DI Sean Duffy suspects otherwise, and the supposed suicide of the son's girlfriend adds to his doubts. The deaths pile up as an IRA hit man, MI5, the FBI, and even President Ronald Reagan appear to be involved. Duffy, a Catholic in the predominantly Protestant RUC, is a maverick who delights in bending the rules. Sarcastic, literate, moral, and loyal, he seems to lead a charmed life amid the Troubles. VERDICT This is McKinty's fourth Duffy outing, following the "Troubles Trilogy" that began with The Cold Cold Ground in 2012. Like the earlier tales, it mixes a mordant wit and casual, unpredictable violence that vividly portrays a turbulent time when Duffy, as a matter of routine, checks under his car for bombs. After a dozen novels, McKinty is in full command of language, plot, and setting in a terrifying period of history that sometimes seems forgotten. Fans of gritty Northern Irish crime writers such as Stuart Neville, Declan Hughes, and Brian McGilloway will enjoy this talented author.-Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
DI Sean Duffy (In the Morning I'll Be Gone, 2014, etc.), stuck in the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 1985, struggles to close a murder case that keeps opening wider and wider."How can you investigate a murder in a time of incipient civil war?" wonders hard-used Duffy. Anywhere else, the shootings of millionaire bookmaker Ray Kelly and his wife would be front-page news for a week; in Ulster during the latest round of the Troubles, they barely make a ripple. The apparent suicide of their missing son, Michael, simply heightens the pressure to close the case by blaming him for their deaths. But Duffy, who was brought aboard the case over his own protests only to keep Larne RUC from unfairly grabbing it from DS McCrabban, isn't satisfied. Once he learns that just before Michael suddenly dropped out of Oxford, he was a guest at a wild party at which drugs claimed the life of agriculture minister's daughter Anastasia Coleman, there's no stopping Duffy. Nothing deters himnot beatings, gunfire, threats from visiting American agents whose identities are clearly bogus, or the caresses and promises of Belfast Telegraph reporter Sara Prentice, who's eager to move off the women's page, or Kate Albright, who's equally eager to recruit Duffy for MI5. The more toes Duffy steps on, the higher the stakes rise, and soon he's looking into the theft of half a dozen missiles from a not-so-secure site in Marseilles and putting scowls on a lot of well-connected faces. The results involve less detection than head-butting, with stonewalling merely the most obvious clue that Duffy's getting somewhere.Alert readers won't need McKinty's afterword to see the many motifs ripped from last generation's headlines. Nor will they be surprised to see Duffy's grim, lively fourth case remain defiantly inconclusive to the last drop of gallows humor. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
