Review Summaries

• Readers respond to the balance between a heavy historical setting and a nimble voice.

Reviews

• Rain Dogs the fifth Duffy book is another great read. I must admit I was slightly apprehensive ...

  Firstly I need to apologise to Mr McKinty for this belated review. Although he provided me with a preview copy via his blog, I didn't read it until purchased. It was well worth the wait. Rain Dogs the fifth Duffy book is another great read. I must admit I was slightly apprehensive when I read that it was another locked room mystery as was the previous book. I need not have worried. This story is so deftly told that the central 'locked room' conundrum is only the pivotal device within the story upon which to hang everything else. As always McKinty is brilliant at conjuring a realistic landscape. You are really transported to another time at place. The cultural reference points that populate this story make you grin with nostalgic pleasure, Corona soda, Radio 1 Roadshows, Bruno Brooks. The slightly doctored social history referenced throughout and the use of real characters - Muhammed Ali and Jimmy Saville in this case - are so skilfully done that it all seems so factual. Like James Ellroy and David Peace, McKinty has the talent to create a 'factional' world that is so real its scary. With hindsight the Saville thing now seems so obvious. But McKinty skilfully conveys the unsure unease that those in his presence must've felt at the time. Aside from the setting, the dialogue is a snappy and sassy as ever, with Duffy humour and cynicism changing with the passing years and as he ages. McKinty is very astute and clever in the way he is aging Duffy and chronicling his incremental maturing and the struggle that most blokes go through in coming to terms with having to grow up. The petulance and temper still flare, but the are degrees of control that come with experience and the changes wrought the dynamics of personal relationships. As always the cast of supporting characters are well drawn. The villians are interesting and well developed. McGrabban is on hand as always, but joined by a young new officer who is a welcome addition to Duffy's dysfunctional working family. The book rattles along at a fair old pace, with just the right amount of twists and turns to make the mystery interesting throughout. It becomes not so much a 'whodunnit' as a 'howdunnit' and this is probably the key difference to I Hear Sirens. The great thing with McKinty's books apposed to many other crime fiction novels is that they always seem to come to a satisfying conclusion. Adrian can write an ending. A talent that so many good writers out there can't do. Buy it, read it, enjoy it. Can't wait for the next one.

• Thrilling series

  Another great installment in this series. Sean Duffy is a great creation. Grim Northern Ireland in the 80s is, as always in these books, superbly depicted. I shall miss Duffy and his dogged, stubborn ways.

• Great book

  Enjoyed this. Peoples tastes will differ so who knows what you'll think.

• Amazing novel

  My first experience with DI Duffy and I enjoyed every page. Thought provoking and engrossing, the characters were truly alive and the plot progressed at breakneck speed and then at a snail's pace. Aggravating yet leaving the reader hungry for more.

• Nothing is as it seems!

  Sean Duffy is going to be an expert for locked room mysteries in this book. The unlikeliness of having to solve the second case of this type in his career will be the starting point to its resolution - supported by a nice bit of Bayesian statistics. "I am not for conspiracies." Duffy claims but of cause he uncovers a web of high reaching conspiracies when he has to deal with the murder - or suicide? - of a young female reporter whose body is found in historic Carrickfergus Castle. Of cause, this will not stay the only casualty and you can trust nobody in 1987 Northern Ireland, where Paramilitaries still dominate a lot of public life. Friends, colleagues and even potential investors may follow a hidden agenda...... As always, the title is taken from a Tom Waits song and indeed it's raining cats and dogs in 1987 Carrickfergus, but its a cat rather than a dog that plays an important role in this book. I have never been a big fan of crime novels, but for Adrian McKinty's books I always make an exception, and not only that: I am looking forward impatiently to every new book, over the last years I became a completist! It is this extraordinary mixture of the setting in a fascinating historical frame, Belfast during the Troubles, a sympathetic, troubled hero the reader immedeately identifies with, poetic intermezzos, a language almost too beautiful for a crime story, a multitude of musical references, well reasearched historical background and of cause a gripping story. There is no cheating, the reader gets all the necessary information and the solution of the locked room mystery is still surprising but so logical that you wonder why you haven't seen it all the time, and this is brilliantly made and exactly how it should be! Readers of other McKinty books meet old aquaintaces: Duffy, Crabbie, Lawson, even Killian - the main character from Falling Glass, another McKinty novel - and his opponent Richard Coulter have short appearances. The only one I missed was the maoist barber.... You may think that in the fifth book of the series on Carrickfergus Detective Sean Duffy the story repeats and he has to solve just another case, but this is definitely not the case here. There are new turns in every book of the series, events that shape the hero and make his character interesting, "round" and authentic. Furthermore, each book of the Sean Duffy series takes up historical events of the time: e.g. the DeLorean scandal, the Brighton bombing, the Iran-Contra affair. Go, read and discover what it may be in Rain Dogs. I promise, you will not regret it! I loved this book no less than the rest of the Duffy series and the other McKinty books. If you have not yet done so, make sure, you also read the rest!

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