I’ve read Adian McKinty’s “Troubles” trilogy: The Cold Cold Ground, I Hear the Sirens in the Street, and In the Morning I’ll Be Gone. You can read my reviews here and here. Now, the trilogy has been expanded to a fourth book, Gun Street Girl.
First there was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, then Gone Girl and The Girl On the Train, and now Adrian McGinty gives us another story of Ireland in the 1980s where his hero, Sean Duffy, has to check his car for bombs before he can drive anywhere. Belfast in 1985 is a cauldron of politics, spies, and murders. Duffy investigates the double-murder of two millionaires and the subsequent “suicide” of their son. None of it adds up for Duffy. Then there’s the case of the missing missiles. Duffy is drawn into the mysterious disappearance of military missiles from a local munitions plant. Gun Street Girl is based on actual events that were going on in Ireland at the time. My only quibble is why don’t the Bad Guys just kill Duffy and end his investigations. But, of course, that would end the Duffy series. GRADE: A-
I really like his books. Remember when calling women girls was politically charges.That went away.
Patti, you’re right. “Girl” was a politically incorrect term unless the female was 12 years old or younger. Now, you put “Girl” in the title of your book and it turns into a best seller!
George, I’d like to read this book, especially since I have read a fair about the IRA in fiction.
Prashant, I can recommend all of Adrian McKinty’s books. But the picture he presents of Ireland in the 1980s is very disturbing.
Since I recently finished the trilogy this one is up next, as soon as it comes in from the library. I must admit I’ve thought the same in previous books of the trilogy – wouldn’t the bad guys just take Duffy out once and for all? I know his neighbor the IRA man does protect him in the first book.
Jeff, that’s my main quibble about the Sean Duffy books. A bullet or bomb would solve a lot of problems for the Bad Guys. But Sean Duffy lives a charmed life.
I’ve had that same thought in a lot of mystery series, but as you say, that would end the series. Jeff has suggested I read these, but the Irish Protestant-Catholic “wars” doesn’t interest me as a background for a mystery story.
Rick, Jeff is right about the quality of the mysteries in the Sean Duffy books. They are clever. But there’s an overall mood of doom.