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The Cold Cold Ground

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Fast-paced, evocative, and brutal, The Cold Cold Ground is a brilliant depiction of Belfast at the height of the Troubles—and of a cop treading a thin, thin line—from the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author Adrian McKinty.

"McKinty is one of the most striking and most memorable crime voices to emerge on the scene in years." —Tana French

Northern Ireland, spring 1981. Hunger strikes, riots, power cuts, a homophobic serial killer with a penchant for opera, and a young woman's suicide that may yet turn out to be murder: on the surface, the events are unconnected, but then things—and people—aren't always what they seem. Detective Sergeant Duffy is the man tasked with trying to get to the bottom of it all. It's no easy job—especially when it turns out that one of the victims was involved in the IRA but was last seen discussing business with someone from the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force. Add to this the fact that, as a Catholic policeman, it doesn't matter which side he's on, because nobody trusts him, and Sergeant Duffy really is in a no-win situation.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 3, 2012
      This series starter from McKinty (Fifty Grand) introduces hard-boiled but likable Det. Sgt. Sean Duffy, a Catholic who remains brashly, winningly sardonic even under the pressure of 1981 Belfast's overwhelmingly Protestant police force. With the hunger strikes ongoing, Duffy tries to prove himself by finding an apparent serial killer targeting gay men, but is impeded by Northern Ireland's revolution-racked but socially conservative culture. As Duffy tries to decipher gnomic clues involving opera and mythology, he begins to suspect that the suicide of a hunger striker's wife links the apparently apolitical murders to the equally ruthless paramilitary and IRA factions. Though an anachronistic tone occasionally jars with the period atmosphere provided by carefully observed detail and cameos from the likes of Gerry Adams, the deft mix of noirish melancholy with express-train pacing and blockbuster-ready action enticingly sets the stage for Duffy's future adventures.

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from November 1, 2012

      What better cover for a serial killer than the political hunger strikes, car bombs, and street riots of Northern Ireland's "troubles"? Det. Sean Duffy, a rarity as a Catholic cop, doesn't step back from digging deep into a case in which gay men are being killed and mutilated with symbolic messages (such as cut-off hands) and more obscure, artistic clues. But as Duffy learns more about the victims, he wonders if their deaths aren't politically motivated after all. Then, when a local missing woman turns up dead and is presumed to have killed herself, initially only Duffy senses that she was murdered and that her death connects with those of the gay men. By now, he has managed to alienate some powerful folks in the activist movement, and he might have to be silenced, too. VERDICT For fans of Stewart Neville's crime novels, a new and harrowing Irish trilogy is underway. At turns violent and labyrinthine, McKinty's (Dead I Well May Be) fine police procedural is also the ultimate page-turner. I cannot wait for Book Two!NEWLY TRANSLATED

      Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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