The Cold Cold Ground: A Detective Sean Duffy Novel (1)
The Cold Cold Ground: A Detective Sean Duffy Novel (1) book cover

The Cold Cold Ground: A Detective Sean Duffy Novel (1)

by
Price
$13.90
Format
Paperback
Pages
320
Publisher
Seventh Street Books
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1616147167
Dimensions
5.5 x 0.8 x 8.25 inches
Weight
10.4 ounces

Description

From Booklist *Starred Review* Irish novelist McKinty returns to his roots with the first book of the Troubles Trilogy, set in his hometown during the time he grew up. At the height of conflict between the Catholic IRA and Protestant paramilitary factions in 1981, Sean Duffy, a Catholic police sergeant in the Protestant town of Carrickfergus, near Belfast, gets an unusual case. Two gay men have been murdered, their right hands severed (the classic modus for killing an informant) and switched between the two bodies. Duffy initially suspects a serial killer, but when no more gay men are targeted, he comes to believe that the second killing was done simply to cover up the first, in which the head of the IRA’s feared internal security force was the victim. Even after the case is reassigned, Duffy defies orders and keeps digging, coming up against corruption and collusion. Everything in this novel hits all the right notes, from its brilliant evocation of time and place to razor-sharp dialogue to detailed police procedures. McKinty, author of the Forsythe and Lighthouse Trilogies, has another expertly crafted crime trilogy going here, and readers will want to see what he does in the concluding two books. --Michele Leber Winner of the 2013 Spinetingler Award for best crime novel! "Everything in this novel hits all the right notes, from its brilliant evocation of time and place to razor-sharp dialogue to detailed police procedures. McKinty... has another expertly crafted crime trilogy going here, and readers will want to see what he [does] in the next two."-- Booklist Starred Review "[T]he deft mix of noirish melancholy with express-train pacing and blockbuster-ready action enticingly sets the stage for Duffy's future adventures."-- Publishers Weekly "For fans of Stuart Neville's crime novels, a new and harrowing Irish trilogy is underway. At turns violent and labyrinthine, McKinty's fine police procedural is also the ultimate page-turner. I cannot wait for Book Two!"-- Library Journal "McKinty kicks off a trilogy with this 1981 Belfast-set tale that provides a fascinating look at everyday life in Northern Ireland during 'the Troubles.' The protagonist is clever and funny, the interaction of the police and various factions is eye-opening and the mystery is intriguing, with an unexpected twist at the end."-- RT Book Reviews , Four Stars (Compelling Page-turner) "If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland, The Cold Cold Ground is what he would have written."-- Times of London "The rage, dissent and blind self-interest of 'the Troubles' are the perfect backdrop for this brutal noir masterpiece.... For all of its brutality, the book is subtle and nuanced.... Duffy [is] the keen observer, the perfect protagonist. A righteous man who unwillingly takes his pursuit of justice into the realm of moral ambiguity."-- Arizona Republic "McKinty belongs to a crew of much-praised Irish crime novelists that includes John Connolly, Declan Burke and Ken Bruen."-- Sacramento Bee "[A] superb book. In addition to developing likable and complex characters, McKinty does an exceptional job of depicting Northern Ireland in 1981, interweaving real historical events (e.g., the hunger strike and death of Bobby Sands) into the narrative.... McKinty's evocation of the time is perfect; although it is a dark and troubling place, I can't wait to return to the scene once again." -- Reviewing the Evidence ADRIAN MCKINTY is the author of seven crime novels, including Dead I Well May Be (shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award), Fifty Grand (the 2010 Spinetingler Award winner), and, most recently, Falling Glass . Born and raised in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, McKinty was called "the best of the new generation of Irish crime novelists" in the Glasgow Herald . Read more

Features & Highlights

  • Spring 1981. Northern Ireland. Belfast on the verge of outright civil war. The Thatcher government has flooded the area with soldiers, but nightly there are riots, bombings, and sectarian attacks. In the midst of the chaos, Sean Duffy, a young, witty, Catholic detective in the almost entirely Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary, is trying to track down a serial killer who is targeting gay men. As a Catholic policeman, Duffy is suspected by both sides and there are layers of complications. For one thing, homosexuality is illegal in Northern Ireland in 1981. Then he discovers that one of the victims was involved in the IRA, but was last seen discussing business with someone from the Protestant UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force). Fast-paced, evocative, and brutal, this book is a brilliant depiction of Belfast at the height of the Troubles and a cop caught in the cross fire.  From the British and Irish reviews:   "If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland, The Cold Cold Ground is what he would have written." --Peter Millar, The Times   "Adrian McKinty is fast gaining a reputation as the finest of the new generation of Irish crime writers, and it's easy to see why on the evidence of this novel, the first in a projected trilogy of police procedurals." --Doug Johnstone, The Glasgow Herald  "Written in a terse style, the novel is a literary thriller that is as concerned with exploring the poisonously claustrophobic demi-monde of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and the self-sabotaging contradictions of its place and time, as it is with providing the genre's conventional thrills and spills. The result is a masterpiece of Troubles crime fiction: had David Peace, Eoin McNamee and Brian Moore sat down to brew up the great Troubles novel, they would have been very pleased indeed to have written The Cold Cold Ground." --Declan Burke, The Irish Times  "He manages to catch the brooding atmosphere of the 1980s and to tell a ripping yarn at the same time. There will be many readers waiting for the next adventure of the dashing, funny and intrepid Sergeant Duffy." --Maurice Hays, The Irish Independent  "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 sound of a riot is "the distant yelling like that of men below decks in a torpedoed prison ship". 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 terrific crime novel, fast-paced, intricate and genre to the core." --Eoin McNamee, The Guardian.  "Tropes are tropes for good reason. The important crime-fiction ones are present and accounted for here -- a serial killer who purposely leaves clues, a cop who's on to him, procedural and forensic nitty-gritty. Yet McKinty can startle with bouts of lyrical scene-setting that could only come from the fingertips of someone who grew up in the environment. He tells us of "arcs of gasoline fire under the crescent moon... The scarlet whoosh of Molotovs intersecting with exacting surfaces. Helicopters everywhere: their spotlights finding one another like lovers in the Afterlife."-- The Irish Sunday Independent

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(1.2K)
★★★★
25%
(1K)
★★★
15%
(603)
★★
7%
(282)
★
23%
(925)

Most Helpful Reviews

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A menacing world

One can only imagine how menacing life was in the early 80s in Northern Ireland with numerous factions virtually at war. That is the setting for Det Sean Duffy, an Irishman working for the Royal Ulster Constabulary. He doesn’t really know if he is safe in his Protestant neighborhood. He must look for bombs under his car before driving.

Now, Duffy finds two gay men murdered hours apart with their right hands sawed off, supposedly marking them as informers. And, as if that is not enough, an Irish girl is found hanged in some woods; it turns out that she is the ex-wife of one of several Irish hunger strikers. At first it seems that a serial killer of gay men is on the loose having nothing to do with political identity. But not so fast – he discovers one of the victims is actually the head of an ultra secret IRA division. All of a sudden matters have gotten way more complicated.

Duffy is an interesting character, using gut instinct as much as anything. He ignores orders to stay away from the case at considerable personal risk. It is a murky situation: a lot is tolerated, even violence, in the name of being on the right side of the Irish conflict. Anyone making too many waves can be dispensed with.
14 people found this helpful
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Very Enjoyable

I read a lot of thrillers, and I enjoyed this more than most. Most of the books I read are American - Lee Child, James Lee Burke, Daniel Woodrell, Larry Brown for example, but recently I have been enjoying writers whose books are set in Ireland or Scotland, notably Ken Bruen, Stuart Neville and Tony Black. The thing is I know Edinburgh, Galway and Belfast a little better than Wyoming or New Orleans.

Ireland is a country still full of tension, both north and south, despite the peace process and her best writers like the ones I've mentioned reflect this. McKinty's Duffy is a highly educated Catholic cop living in a protestant area, and although there is a rumbling dispute among the reviews on the Britsh site about various details of authenticity, he lived in Belfast until he went to university, which includes the time when this novel is set, so he can't be all that wrong.

This book stands out for me because the characterisation is much superior to that of other thriller writers. I found myself fascinated by all the characters, 'good' and 'bad'. Northern Ireland has been notorious for its labyrinth of crisscrossing loyalties and alliances, most of which are/were at least to some extent hidden from gaze, and any decent history of the troubles or any decent novel set in them will reflect this.

This book reveals this aspect in a slightly different way than for instance Stuart Neville's 'The Twelve', and the characters are mostly more goodhumoured than his. This is neither good nor bad but I enjoyed the quality of insults shared between Duffy and his friends and colleagues.

Finally one or two reviewers have disparaged some of Duffy's behaviour as excessively maverick or unlikely. Well I used to work with the police quite regularly (not in Belfast) in some fairly edgy situations, and I can assure you in a tight spot they blunder around and do what makes sense to them at the time, which may or may not be in the rule book.

If anyone doubts this read Joseph Wambaugh's fictional and nonfictional books about the police in LA, where he was a copper for a long time.

The most enjoyable thriller I have read for ages.
2 people found this helpful
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Why I have started reading/loving crime fiction

I generally don't favor many genres over others, because if the story's good, who cares that it's historical / sci fi / literary / dramatic? Yet I kind of veered away from anything detectivey (I didn't even know crime fiction was a genre), because I must have stumbled onto medium-dumb stories where I spent more time picking out the structure of the story than delving into it. I thought it was just that I didn't like reading about crime.

This is not the case with, so far five books in, anything that Adrian McKinty's written. His story uses street talk that works with the narration, short chunky sentences, but also uses lyrical passages that you could put behind a glass inside a very cool museum.

Adrian opens with this passage in The Cold, Cold Ground:
"The scarlet whoosh of Molotovs intersecting with exacting surfaces. Helicopters everywhere, their spotlights finding one another like lovers in the afterlife."

All of a sudden, in my mind anyway, there's a new coda for talking about riots / war. Throughout the rest of the book, I'm 100% in step with the story. There's urgency and there's graphic awful glory.

It's the story of a Northern Irish cop who's Catholic living in a Protestant neighborhood in Belfast in the 1980s. Fun, right? There are all kinds of great plot twists but also really interesting experience of Northern Ireland told to me in a non-U2 video kind of way. Yeah, there are countless movies and books on WWII, some mediocre and some excellent. As for talking about Northern Ireland, I knew some basic facts but heard a penny whistle in my head. Adrian McKinty's work is set to a different, more muscular and weird soundtrack. Something's afoot in Ireland these days with this swelling of crime fiction novels.

An exciting time to be a reader.
2 people found this helpful
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So Irish the vocab is a challenge

As always, the plot twists are great, but the setting and life-styles are hard to relate to and often confusing as the "slang" terms are really foreign. I never really related to the main character and he seemed unfinished or incomplete in his developement. I think this one is best read on an audible version.
1 people found this helpful
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Neither the protagonist nor the plot is credible

I'd not read any of McKinty's novels before but picked this up because his current novel, The Chain, is getting a lot of favorable attention. This is the first in a series of crime novels by McKinty centering on Sean Duffy, an Irish detective working here in Belfast during the "Troubles." It was highly rated by other Amazon readers but I found Duffy to be not very likable and he and the plot are not very credible either. The Belfast setting in 1981 is well-rendered and interesting, but that's not enough to overcome the fundamental weaknesses. The ending is especially ridiculous and promises more silliness to come.
1 people found this helpful
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Setting, story, characters, brilliant writing; takes us to a hard place and kept me spellbound.

Adrian McKinty is a wonderful writer, his prose cannily honest and beautifully crafted. As in any tale of the insurmountable, the Cold Cold Ground's heroes find humor and humanity where there should be none, while McKinty is talented enough to show no trace of temptation to romanticize. Set in the epicenter of Northern Ireland's Troubles, as previous reviewer JM Harvey wrote: it's... "so well done you can almost smell the gunsmoke and petrol bombs." As a matter of fact, this may be cheating but, I can't think of a more perfect way to go deeper into the story and characters than Ms/Mr Harvey has. So, if its alright, I'll refer you there, and just say that McKinty did not allow me to flinch from the page and it took me a minute to figure out where I was when I did. I would recommend to anyone, with the caveat that there will be violence, just as there was.

Note: For some reason, the books are no longer on Kindle. I purchased the first in that format around a month ago, to find that the second and third were not available as e-books - now this one is not either. I was happy to buy the paperbacks, but find it strange, and no favor to readers or the author.
1 people found this helpful
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Brilliant Crime Thriller!

Wow! “The Cold Cold Ground” was my introduction to Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy and his work with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. I was recommended this book by a friend and devoured it over a couple of days while on holiday in Bali. It’s a great read.

Sean Duffy is a Catholic detective working for the very Protestant RUC. To make matters more interesting, he also lives in a Protestant district of Belfast. The historical setting of the book is 1981 when Ulster was at the height of “The Troubles”.

Duffy is assigned to a double homicide case that appears to be a serial killer with a grudge against gay men. The case is complex and, without giving anything away, involves more than simple homicide.

The backdrop of Ulster in 1981 is fascinating. The city is on the verge of civil war. Normal secular society as we understand it today in most western cities no longer exists. Everything is viewed through the prism of religion. The author was born and raised in Ulster but now lives in Australia. His narrative about the time and place is absolutely brilliant. The city lives on edge.

Upon finishing this book, I have ordered the next in the series. If the subsequent books are anything like the original, I am in for a wild ride. Totally recommended.
1 people found this helpful
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I read good mysteries. I had reached a place where I ...

The reviews were so complimentary for this series of thrillers that I purchased the second book in the series when I purchased The Cold, Cold Ground. I read much history: American, British, European, all different time periods. When I need a break, I read good mysteries. I had reached a place where I was scrambling to find a new author. After much research, I chose to try this series by Adrian McKinty.

The genre of international mysteries and thrillers is fairly new to me. For several years the Inspector Gamache mysteries by Louise Penny were what I read. Ms. Penny is a Canadian author. Unfortunately, after reading the first five novels in order, I made a mistake and read one that was two novels ahead. Ms. Penny had taken one of her main characters to such an unexpected place in his life that I felt betrayed by the author. It was a wrenching experience and a great loss to me because I really looked forward to her books. I stopped reading mysteries for over a year. American authors that I had enjoyed as a younger person seemed formulaic and stale when I tried to return to their mysteries.

However, several days ago, when I was searching on Audible for my next book, I discovered a host of international mystery writers. I was overjoyed. The Cold, Cold Ground is set in Northern Ireland during the terrorism of the IRA. As I read about the challenges of D. I. Sean Duffy, my own memories of that time period returned. I remembered the hunger strikes and the death of Bobby Sands. As D. I. Duffy checked his car everyday for car bombs, and as his fellow officers discussed in a moment of reflection which of the townspeople and their children had been recently killed, I was aware all over, again, of the nightmare this country had endured.

The narration by Gerard Doyle is excellent. I look forward to hearing him soon in the next Adrian McKinty mystery.
1 people found this helpful
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The plot is great and no one is safe except the political leaders

The Ulster Gravy Train, March 20, 2015
By Richard Gollin "ScottishRichard" (Scotland)
(REAL NAME)
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This review is from: The Cold Cold Ground (The Troubles Trilogy, Book 1) (Paperback)
Let me get this straight. I am an Englishman and the English come out of this story very badly indeed. So do the Irish , the Ulster Catholics and Ulster Protestants who created and carved up the gravy train that began in Ulster in the late 60s and continues to this day. No need to worry that this series will ever run out of raw material!

So , reading this series, takes you back to the open history of the politicians and leaders of a province with the population of Manchester, England and what was really going on in the grab for the money flowing in from... virtually everywhere. The book is superbly written and often deeply depressing. We all remember switching off NewsNight almost every evening just to avoid the issue. The plot is great and no one is safe except the political leaders . I have a question for Mr McKinty. Mrs Thatcher made the Ulster Police take on Catholic policemen. They had the almost unique position of being shot at and murdered by everyone including their colleagues! Yes, that is not at all funny.So I would really like to know; what percentage of those early Catholic police survived?

Here is another digression. My late father worked for Shell and was often sent to Ulster if the power station went wrong. Always, in the Taxi, he would be asked "Which foot do you kick with?". Meaning are you Catholic or Protestant? The whole of life right through education has these two groups separate and hating each other as scapegoats, when one might say that the enemy should have been poverty just as the Irish Republic became rich through the EC. My father always said "Sorry, I am Jewish" and from then on both sides treated him really well .

So Catholic policeman Sean Duffy makes a wonderful hero in a great plot of the black, black world of Ulster. I bet all those on the gravy train are not too happy about Mr McKinty writing such blunt prose on their history. But Melbourne is a long way away..
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Good history in this book

I was not a fan of this one. I did find the information pertaining to Ireland fascinating, it really paints a awesome picture of what life was like in that setting during that time, but I won't be continuing my journey with this trilogy.
1 people found this helpful

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