The Cold Cold Ground (Sean Duffy)

Adrian McKinty

ISBN 10: 1441785698 ISBN 13: 9781441785695

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing, 2012

Synopsis

[Read by Gerard Doyle]

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.

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.

About this title

About the Author

ADRIAN MCKINTY was born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. He studied politics and philosophy at Oxford before moving to America in the early 1990s. Living first in Harlem, he found employment as a construction worker, barman, and bookstore clerk. In 2000 he moved to Denver to become a high school English teacher and it was there that he began writing fiction. His first full-length novel, Dead I Well May Be, was short-listed for the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and its sequel, The Dead Yard, was selected as one of the twelve best novels of the year by Publishers Weekly. In 2008 his debut young adult novel, The Lighthouse Land, was short-listed for the 2008 Young Hoosier Award and the 2008 Beehive Award. The final novel in the Dead trilogy, The Bloomsday Dead, was long-listed for the 2009 World Book Day Award. In 2009 he moved to Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and two children.

Review

Praise for Adrian McKinty:

''McKinty is a streetwise, energetic gunslinger of a writer, firing off volleys of sassy dialogue and explosive action that always delivers what it has promised.'' --Irish Times (Dublin)

''A master of modern noir, up there with Dennis Lehane and James Ellroy.'' --Guardian (London)

''If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland, The Cold Cold Ground is what he would have written.'' --Times (London)

''The Cold Cold Ground confirms McKinty as a writer of substance . . . What makes McKinty a cut above the rest is the quality of his prose. His driven, spat-out sentences are more accessible than James Ellroy's edge-of-reason staccato, and he can be lyric . . . The names of David Peace and Ellroy are evoked too often in relation to young crime writers, but McKinty shares their method of using the past as a template for the present. The stories and textures may belong to a different period, but the power of technique and intent makes of them the here and now. There's food for thought in McKinty's writing, but he is careful not to lose the force of his narrative in introspection. The Cold Cold Ground is a crime novel, fast-paced, intricate and genre to the core.'' --Guardian (UK)

''McKinty is a streetwise, energetic gunslinger of a writer, firing off volleys of sassy dialogue and explosive action that always delivers what it has promised.'' --Irish Times

''Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy . . . could well become a cult figure . . . McKinty has established a good track record in the genre and in his return to his native sod for he shows that he has not lost his touch or his eye for the bizarre and the macabre, or his ear for the Belfast accent and argot . . . McKinty creates a marvelous sense of time and place; an evocation of darkness and horror, of corruption and collusion, of the fraught life of a policeman, of the domination of areas by paramilitary groups at war with each other and with the British state but colluding on drugs and criminality, the immediacy of death and the cheapness of life . . . A ripping yarn . . . There will be many readers waiting for the next adventure of the dashing and intrepid Sergeant Duffy.'' --Irish Independent

''A journey into a terrifying and almost dreamlike labyrinth of violence and betrayal, The Cold Cold Ground certainly won't let the reader go. It's the first novel of a trilogy that promises to be a superb read.'' --Shots, crime and thriller e-zine

''If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland, The Cold Cold Ground is what he would have written.'' --Times (London)

''The Cold Cold Ground confirms McKinty as a writer of substance . . . What makes McKinty a cut above the rest is the quality of his prose. His driven, spat-out sentences are more accessible than James Ellroy's edge-of-reason staccato, and he can be lyric . . . The names of David Peace and Ellroy are evoked too often in relation to young crime writers, but McKinty shares their method of using the past as a template for the present. The stories and textures may belong to a different period, but the power of technique and intent makes of them the here and now. There's food for thought in McKinty's writing, but he is careful not to lose the force of his narrative in introspection. The Cold Cold Ground is a crime novel, fast-paced, intricate and genre to the core.'' --Guardian (UK)

''McKinty is a streetwise, energetic gunslinger of a writer, firing off volleys of sassy dialogue and explosive action that always delivers what it has promised.'' --Irish Times

''Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy . . . could well become a cult figure . . . McKinty has established a good track record in the genre and in his return to his native sod for he shows that he has not lost his touch or his eye for the bizarre and the macabre, or his ear for the Belfast accent and argot . . . McKinty creates a marvelous sense of time and place; an evocation of darkness and horror, of corruption and collusion, of the fraught life of a policeman, of the domination of areas by paramilitary groups at war with each other and with the British state but colluding on drugs and criminality, the immediacy of death and the cheapness of life . . . A ripping yarn . . . There will be many readers waiting for the next adventure of the dashing and intrepid Sergeant Duffy.'' --Irish Independent

''A journey into a terrifying and almost dreamlike labyrinth of violence and betrayal, The Cold Cold Ground certainly won't let the reader go. It's the first novel of a trilogy that promises to be a superb read.'' --Shots, crime and thriller e-zine

About this edition

• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1441785698
• ISBN 13: 9781441785695
• Binding: Audio CD
• Number of pages: 9