I Hear the Sirens in the Street, by Adrian McKinty

 I'm a little tardy in getting a post out about this novel by British standards, and a little early by American standards. The truth is, I read this book in an earlier prepublished form and it's taken me a while to buy and get to the official version. Anyway, as a bridge between English and American editions, I'm probably roughly in the right place, though wholly by accident, which is typical.

I've written quite a few posts now about McKinty's books, as you can see HERE. But what I thought I'd talk about in relation to I Hear the Sirens in the Street is something that I don't find commented on in better reviews than my own. Here's an example of one such (be careful, though, as its a bit spoiler heavy). Yes, we can all see the descriptive accuracy, the lyric gift, the deep themes of revenge, the very occasional heart-stopping violence. I think I've even mentioned that they are often very funny, in that dry Northern Irish sort of way.

But I think that one thing few reviewers have made enough of is their quality of delight. If I say they are delightful, you'll think I mean that they are charming and sweet and cozy, which would definitely be giving the wrong impression. What I mean, though, is that the language itself consistently gives your brain a delicious little dose of something that it wasn't expecting. It's not in the plotting, it's not in the jokes, it's not in the casually thrown in erudition--or not alone in them. It's the sensibility behind the story that provides it.

With "The Troubles" trilogy (which is so far just "The Troubles" duo) it's been interesting to see that some reviewers favor the first over the second, and some the second over the first. Personally, I think this is probably like asking, which Game of Thrones (technically, A Song of Fire and Ice) novel did you prefer? It's one story, people! Two crimes, sure, but basically, one story of  guy who finds himself in a Northern Ireland whose hopes and dreams are fading fast, on the outside of more things than he's on the inside of--and yes, you can take that as saltily as you want to--smart enough to know it makes sense to leave, and still--not leaving. Not permanently. Not yet.

In the meantime, though, Sean Duffy is islandbound. He starts out on a routine police investigation and is immediately shot at by an aged security guard. Things don't really get better...

Another shotgun blast.

The security guard had taken the time to reload and was determined to have more fun.

“Stop shooting!” McCrabban demanded again.

“Get out of here!” a voice replied. “I’ve had enough of you hoodlums!”

It was a venerable voice, from another Ireland, from the 30's or even earlier, but age gave it no weight or assurance - only a frail, impatient, dangerous doubt.

This, every copper knew, was how it would end, not fighting the good fight but in a random bombing or a police chase gone wrong or shot by a half senile security guard in a derelict factory in north Belfast. It was April 1st. Not a good day to die.

“We’re the police!” McCrabban insisted.

“The what?”

“The police!”

“I’ll call the police!”

“We are the police!”

“You are?”

I lit a cigarette, sat down and leaned against the outer shell of the big turbine.   

 

You can actually read tons of the beginning of the novel on McKinty's blog--that is, if you're the mistrusting sort who isn't going to take my word for the thing. Go on ahead--I'll never know.   

 

The Cold Cold Ground, by Adrian McKinty--American style

Now that The Cold Cold Ground has finally arrived in California, I thought I'd repost the meandering review I wrote of the book when it came out in England at the beginning of the year. It really is one of my favorite crime novels and I encourage people to seek it out for any number of reasons. Plus, I can put up the American cover.

Let's cut to the chase here--I love this book. "Love" isn't usually a word I use in describing my reaction to a crime novel, although even an occasional reader here on this blog may have deduced that I am a mad fan of Adrian McKinty's writing. I'd tend to say exciting, well-written, fast paced--things like this. But for reasons both idiosyncratic and more universal I do love this book.

Let's get the subjective part over first. The events of this novel largely take place in Belfast and neighboring towns in the spring of 1981. McKinty was still a child during this historic, tragic moment of Northern Ireland's recent history--and lived through them as a child--but I was a youngish adult, traveling through England and Europe for the first time. I didn't get to Northern Ireland, of course--probably wouldn't have even dared if I'd thought of it. But the Hunger Strikes which form a part of the background of this story were much on the mind of everyone in England that we met, that and the Royal Wedding, as well as the assassination attempt on the Pope and other things that mark this novel as accurate to its specific moment. So, for me, there is an odd nostalgia that goes along with this story, and it had an almost uncanny ability to restore the memories of a long forgotten time. It helped, I suppose, that we visited our old professor in Yorkshire, and he had some very definite opinions about Ian Paisley and Margaret Thatcher and everyone who was involved in Northern Ireland at that time, so that I was not completely ignorant of events, as normally I very well might have been.

But beyond all this, the real reason I'm crazy about this book is that it's actually the one I've wanted McKinty to write since I first began reading him. In Dead I Well May Be, we get a tantalizing look at life in Northern Ireland as the story opens, where we meet Michael Forsythe signing up for some illegal work in Belfast. No sooner do we start to settle into that life, though, than Michael finds himself fleeing the country entirely. Dead I Well May Be is a wonderful book, but there was a part of me that felt when we abruptly find him again in Harlem in a whole new life that I had been a bit cheated of something. The Northern Ireland that Michael Forsythe slips out of is not quite the Northern Ireland of 1981, but they are older brother and younger brother to each other. There is a bomb at the beginning of Dead I Well May Be, there are more than one in The Cold Cold Ground. One thing that most of us in the world are fortunate enough not to have experience of is what its like to try and live a normal life alongside of such violence with such random victims. This book, despite being a story about a crime, begins to tell us that.

The hero of our tale is Sean Duffy, a Detective Sergeant who has recently been transferred to Carrickfergus, a small coastal largely Protestant town within close reach of bellicose Belfast, but still separated enough to have its own culture and concerns. The police station is small and would be more likely to focus on insurance fraud and bicycle theft if it had its druthers, but the police force isn't exempt from getting out in full riot gear if Belfast or some other hot spot calls for support.

Duffy is a Catholic in a community that is self-protectively Protestant and could and sometimes does become hostile toward him. He's also a university trained man who was set for an academic career when one of Belfast's more violent moments touches him too deeply to ignore and sets him on the course that leads him to join the police. In other words, he's more than one kind of outsider. His stance, therefore is somewhat distanced as compared to others, and and he refuses to lead from a knee jerk partisanship in his reaction to events. (Although this doesn't make him a stranger to flareups of anger in other circumstances.)

The plot is a tight police procedural, with a couple of crimes floating around and investigating these takes Duffy and his team into many neighborhoods of Belfast and environs. Places like the Falls Road will sound familiar to anyone with even a nodding acquaintance of The Troubles, but McKinty knows both what they are and what they have been better than most. Here's how Duffy describes Rathcool to a colleague as they walk its "drab tenements and crumbling 1960s tower blocks.":

Rathcool comes from the Irish Rath Cuile meaning 'in the centre of the fort'. Once this was a royal palace for the kings of the Ulaidh. Now look at it. Concrete towers and row upon row of soulless terraces.

Most people could look it up on Wikipedia and then tell you of the recent history of Rathcool. Some might even give you that Gaelic meaning. But not everyone will give you the deep history of a place as they are describing the site of a run down tenement. Its the book's depth as well as its breadth, geographic and otherwise, that sets it apart.

Although Duffy is investigating a possible serial killer and things occasionally blow up in the background, don't be misled into thinking this is a grim tale. There's always humor running through McKinty's work, sometimes quietly, sometimes a groan-making pun. His ironic stance on situations that others have invested heavily in positions on always makes you look at things a bit differently.

Carrickfergus is a little world. I'm glad McKinty came back to it, at least for awhile.

(If you'd like to get a sense of the opening paragraphs, here is a LINK.)

 

Falling Glass--a reprise

The fall double header of Adrian McKinty's fiction began today in the U.S. (The second book, The Cold Cold Ground, is out in November.)Although many of his American fans may have gotten their hands on these books already after their British publication last year, for all intents and purposes, the U.S. is an untapped market. So I thought I'd repost this review from last year, as it seems possible that it might reach a few new readers.

In 2003, a new sort of crime fiction protagonist slipped into our midst, much as he had slipped illegally into the U.S. in the fictional realm. The book was Dead I Well May Be and the hero, or anti-hero, was Michael Forsythe, a young guy hailing from the environs of Belfast. A small, wiry guy, (at least the way I pictured him)  you probably wouldn't have noticed him on the streets of New York, where he did the dirty work for an Irish gang, but he turned out to be a figure to be reckoned with--as his enemies (and readers of the three Dead trilogy novels) would shortly come to know. Those who have been lucky enough to happen upon these books have been clamoring for more Michael Forsythe ever since. His tough, indeed ruthless way of achieving his ends was counterbalanced by his wit, his literary sensibilities, and his vulnerability, a kind of too open stance despite his bravado, which readers seem to have picked up on. When all's said and done, he's a thug, but readers do not love Michael Forsythe for this, but despite it. You may thrill to his acts of derring-do, but all the while understand that from the beginning his path is not so much a choice as a fate.

So, although McKinty has warned fans that his latest novel, Falling Glass, includes Forsythe, but without a starring role, he's still worth considering here as a background, a prime mover, or something more elemental, like the weather. This is Killian's book, not Michael's and I believe readers will be happy it is so. But it's still worth keeping Forsythe in mind, and possibly even read a Dead trilogy novel or two first if you haven't, because it's useful to have the Michael Forsythe frame of reference when you're considering Killian's alternatives. Let's just say that Forsythe is not incidental to the novel, but crucial to it.

Killian has traveled down much the same road as Forsythe. In fact, at a fateful meeting in an early novel, Killian failed to protect someone from Forsythe, which led to one man's death and allowed Forsythe to live to tell--or not tell--the tale. Killian has left his past in the Irish tinker culture to commit petty and not so petty crime for a number of years, but the advent of the Celtic Tiger prosperity had allowed him to dream of the straight life, just as the departure of prosperity is now leaving him little option but to do 'one more job' in order to sort out his own financial nightmares.

The successful dispatch of one job quickly leads to the offer of another even more lucrative task. And it's to be a good deed, isn't it? Rescue two wee bairns from their drug addicted mother, who has broken custody rights and fled with them. Although Killian halfheartedly asks a time or two why the police haven't been called in, the money is too good to really ask this question seriously.

The fact that Killian is a tinker is not incidental to the tale, nor just a bit of colorful lore, thrown in. To be a tinker is to take part in the nomadic life of the human race, which belongs to a different value system than the settled peoples of the world entirely. It is a last remnant of oral culture, and is tied, as McKinty does tie it, to Homeric times and Homeric values. I found this rumination on a non-capitalistic culture surviving within a capitalistic one very thought provoking, especially in the context of the bust that followed the Irish boom. Killian starts the novel with a bunch of useless apartments, a one time seemingly sound investment that, as for so many, has turned out to be at best a headache and at worst a nightmare. By the midpoint of the story, he has reconnected to his tinker past, and gradually finds his true identity among them. That identity includes songs, fairs, fests, but also true honor and true hospitality.

I found myself thinking a lot about Laurens Van der Post's work, both fiction and nonfiction, on the culture of the Bushmen. It was not only white settlers who were their enemies, he claimed, but settled black Africans as well. At the time, I thought that it was because these two culture's were antithetical, but something about McKinty's book made me understand that the tinkers and Bushmen and the Romany gypsies are not so much opposites of our culture, as simply a past that has been despised and repressed. It seems like it might be a good time for that repressed to return.

Lest I give you any impression that this is not a crime novel, it certainly is. It's a fast-paced tale featuring more than one foe for Killian and more than one decision to make about where he really stands. Killian is no pacifist, and he has occasion to take up a weapon or two before the course of the book has run. But the superb ending is a duel of another order, and one well worth waiting for.

 

The Cold Cold Ground. Again.

You didn't listen to me the last time, did you? Well, don't worry about it, hardly anyone ever does. I'm giving you a second option. You can listen to this guy instead...

The Cold Cold Ground, by Adrian McKinty

Let's cut to the chase here--I love this book. "Love" isn't usually a word I use in describing my reaction to a crime novel, although even an occasional reader here on this blog may have deduced that I am a mad fan of Adrian McKinty's writing. I'd tend to say exciting, well-written, fast paced--things like this. But for reasons both idiosyncratic and more universal I do love this book.

Let's get the subjective part over first. The events of this novel largely take place in Belfast and neighboring towns in the spring of 1981.  McKinty was still a child during this historic, tragic moment of Northern Ireland's recent history--and lived through them as a child--but I was a youngish adult, traveling through England and Europe for the first time. I didn't get to Northern Ireland, of course--probably wouldn't have even dared if I'd thought of it. But the Hunger Strikes which form a part of the background of this story were much on the mind of everyone in England that we met, that and the Royal Wedding,  as well as the assassination attempt on the Pope and other things that mark this novel as accurate to its specific moment. So, for me, there is an odd nostalgia that goes along with this story, and it had an almost uncanny ability to restore the memories of a long forgotten time. It helped, I suppose, that we visited our old professor in Yorkshire, and he had some very definite opinions about Ian Paisley and Margaret Thatcher and everyone who was involved in Northern Ireland at that time, so that I was not completely ignorant of events, as normally I very well might have been.

But beyond all this, the real reason I'm crazy about this book is that it's actually the one I've wanted McKinty to write since I first began reading him. In Dead I Well May Be, we get a tantalizing look at life in Northern Ireland as the story opens, where we meet Michael Forsythe signing up for some illegal work in Belfast. No sooner do we start to settle into that life, though, than Michael finds himself fleeing the country entirely. Dead I Well May Be is a wonderful book, but there was a part of me that felt when we abruptly find him again in Harlem in a whole new life that I had been a bit cheated of something. The Northern Ireland that Michael Forsythe slips out of is not quite the Northern Ireland of 1981, but they are older brother and younger brother to each other. There is a bomb at the beginning of Dead I Well May Be, there are more than one in The Cold Cold Ground. One thing that most of us in the world are fortunate enough not to have experience of is what its like to try and live a normal life alongside of such violence with such random victims. This book, despite being a story about a crime, begins to tell us that.

The hero of our tale is Sean Duffy, a Detective Sergeant  who has recently been transferred to Carrickfergus, a small coastal largely Protestant town within close reach of bellicose Belfast, but still separated enough to have its own culture and concerns. The police station is small and would be more likely to focus on insurance fraud and bicycle theft if it had its druthers, but the police force isn't exempt from getting out in full riot gear if Belfast or some other hot spot calls for support.

Duffy is a Catholic in a community that is self-protectively Protestant and could and sometimes does become hostile toward him. He's also a university trained man who was set for an academic career when one of Belfast's more violent moments touches him too deeply to ignore and sets him on the course that leads  him to join the police.  In other words, he's more than one kind of outsider. His stance, therefore is somewhat distanced as compared to others, and and he refuses to lead from a knee jerk partisanship in his reaction to events. (Although this doesn't make him a stranger to flareups of anger in other circumstances.)

The plot is a tight police procedural, with a couple of crimes floating around and investigating these takes Duffy and his team into many neighborhoods of Belfast and environs. Places like the Falls Road will sound familiar to anyone with even a nodding acquaintance of The Troubles, but McKinty knows  both what they are and what they have been better than most. Here's how Duffy describes Rathcool to a colleague as they walk its "drab tenements and crumbling 1960s tower blocks.":

Rathcool comes from the Irish Rath Cuile meaning 'in the centre of the fort'. Once this was a royal palace for the kings of the Ulaidh. Now look at it. Concrete towers and row upon row of soulless terraces.

Most people could look it up on Wikipedia and then tell you of the recent history of Rathcool. Some might even give you that Gaelic meaning. But not everyone will give you the deep history of a place as they are describing the site of a run down tenement. Its the book's depth as well as its breadth, geographic and otherwise, that sets it apart.

Although Duffy is investigating a possible serial killer and things occasionally blow up in the background, don't be misled into thinking this is a grim tale. There's always humor running through McKinty's work, sometimes quietly, sometimes a groan-making pun. His ironic stance on situations that others have invested heavily in positions on always makes you look at things a bit differently.

Carrickfergus a little world. I'm glad McKinty came back to it, at least for awhile.

(If you'd like to get a sense of the opening paragraphs, here is a LINK.)

Award nominees and a miscellany of other news

As I'm reading several things at the moment and getting to the end of none of them soon, I thought it might be fun to mention a few exciting things in the book world.

First, two authors I think are terrific, Declan Burke and Alan Glynn, are on the shortlist for the Irish Book Awards, which you can vote on HERE. I haven't gotten to Bloodland yet, but I've read two other books by Glynn and  so I'm certain he is worthy of consideration. Burke's Absolute Zero Cool, which I have read, is super. And this says nothing at all about the other nominees. Why not check out the site and at least make a list for your TBR pile?

A flukey surprise of going to the site is that I discovered Anna Carey who was once a part of a reading forum I participate in, is up for another Irish Book Award in the children's category for The Real Rebecca. I have bought it since finding out, but haven't got a chance to read it, but knowing her through the virtual world as I did, I am sure this book deserves to be on the list.

Two more books from Irish or more specifically Northern Irish writers are not up for awards yet, but that's because they are barely or not even out yet. Gerard Brennan's The Point is getting heaps of praise before it's even hit the streets and I am super excited that it is probably being lofted my way even now. And you too can now order it from Book Depository now.

And the one I have read, although in not quite final form, is Adrian McKinty's The Cold, Cold Ground.
I loved this book, even unfinished. It's not going to be out till January, but you owe it to yourself to preorder it here and now. You know how January is. The holidays are over and the resolutions fade fast and you have nothing much to look forward till at least spring. Treat yourself to this now, and you will have a very pleasant surprise waiting for you just when you think there is nothing much left to live for.

Deviant, by Adrian McKinty

Although I did a review of this book already over on  Goodreads, I thought I'd delay writing one here till closer to the true publication date, which is upon us. I had a pleasurable afternoon reading it before I was set to go on a trip this summer, but have been aware that there's been a bit of resistance to it, which I thought I might address here, even while knowing that this review is unlikely to be read by anyone from its true audience, which I think is probably the middle school age range. It is really perfectly suited to the type of kid who enjoys Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series, which I somehow got involved in on the recommendation of my nephew, and which I've also enjoyed quite a lot. As with Horowitz, I enjoy the range and subtlety of McKinty's efforts for an adult audience more, but that's because, well, I'm an adult.

We have a prologue style opening in Deviant, which I'll get to in a  minute, but once we get to the real protagonists story, Danny Lopez's path reminds me a bit of Jamie O'Neill's in McKinty's previous trilogy, The Lighthouse Books. Both boys leave a big but familiar city for a smaller more isolated place. Danny doesn't find an entry point to another planet, of course, but the world he encounters in the high Rockies of Colorado is a pretty weird one all the same. The school he'll be attending has a lot of very strange rules--though the kids, being kids, soon find ways of circumventing them.

Having been moved around a few times as a kid, I liked the depiction of how Danny has to figure out who his real friends are going to be. It looks easy at first, but isn't necessarily in the long run.

The stakes are a little higher for Danny than just fitting in, though. There's a cat killer on the loose in Cobalt, and along with his skateboard, Sunflower, Danny's cat Jeffrey is one of the few things Danny cares about. Uh oh.

The opening of this book starts in the mind of the cat killer, and I suspect that may be off-putting to some readers. Even I, who have enjoyed all of McKinty's books, wasn't sure I would be able to handle a book written completely in that voice. But have no fear, folks--that's just the set up. It's actually a pretty good little story within itself if you can get past your dread and read it.

A couple of questions did arise while I read the book, and while I'll do my best to make them non-spoilerish, I am going to put them  in the comments section, so you have been forewarned.

Absolute Zero Cool, by Declan Burke

This is a novel of so many excellent parts that I don't really know where to start. Why don't you take a look at this video of John Connelly helping to launch the book for Liberties Press? I mean, who would you rather listen to, really--him or me? I know which I'd choose.



If you watched the video, you will know that this is not your average crime novel, in either content or design. Having read two of his other books, I can attest that Mr. Burke is quite capable of writing a really good book in the more conventional forms, but that is not what he is setting out to do here. The conceit is that the character "Declan Burke" is visited, while on a writer's retreat, by a character who was thought up for a book that never made it to a final draft. Karlsson--or Billy, as he now apparently wants to be called-- asks to be let out of the limbo that is the fate of an unfinished character. He turns out to be a hard guy to say no to.

I believe I would have been a bit bewildered by this book, which I might have expected to be a caper, though of the darkly comic kind, if I had not been clued in by an early blurb of Adrian McKinty's, mentioning another Irishman who wrote sui generis fiction, Flann O'Brien. Having read O'Brien's The Third Policeman not that long ago myself, I was more prepared for the 'outside the crime fiction box' story than I might have been.

Although much of the book is about the hammering out of a novel between the fictional Karlsson and the, well, equally fictional Declan Burke, the book's dark energy is really Karlsson's, I think. He has a Mephistophelian charisma, if not what you could really call charm. When Karlsson, as Billy, meets Declan Burke at the writer's retreat, he is missing an eye, and sports an eyepatch. I was curious about that throughout the book, and may have missed a beat when it was explained, but an Irishman with an eyepatch always has some relation to Joyce, I suppose. For me, though, and this is just my own take on the thing, the one-eyed nature of Billy has everything to do with his monomania and, forgive the pun, lack of perspective. His relentlessly dark vision of our life on earth is persuasive, at times funny, and yet always bracing. He is the classic case of the guy who is too smart for his own good, by which I mean beyond the reach of help, because this is where he chooses to put himself.

The title of the book refers to the coldest possible temperature, which is more theoretical than actual, in which all energy is frozen. Nothing moves. This reminds me of Dante's version of hell, which is not heat, but ice. Karlsson, who want to bring everything down, is perhaps an agent of such a space, but Karlsson, much as he would like to go his own inexorable way, is, despite himself, still moved by love and loss, even as the book draws toward its close.

Karlsson is certainly an aspect of Declan Burke, for where else could he have come from? But Declan Burke, as either character or author, has learned a thing or two more about life, thanks to marriage and a child, than poor Karlsson ever dreamt of in his philosophies. Karlsson, I think, is aware of the lack.

Don't worry, Karlsson. You can always hope there will be a different sort of ending in the  movie.

The Dead Yard, by Adrian McKinty

I have just recently finished reading the Dead trilogy, with Belfast's Michael Forsythe as hero or anti-hero or something. I wouldn't recommend reading the series in the order I have, but as the first is out of print in the U.S. right now, do what you must.

The Dead Yard is the second book in the series, although chronologically, this story actually fits in somewhere before the coda at the end of the first novel, Dead I Well May Be. Starting off on the island Spanish island of Tenerife, somewhere off the east coast of Africa, the action swiftly moves back to the east coast of America, which is a different clime entirely.

It doesn't give too much away, I think, to reveal that Michael becomes embedded in a disaffected Irish group who are hoping to make a big splash to gain favor back in the home country.

I've heard that some find this middle novel darker than the others, but frankly I'm surprised at that. Our introduction to Michael Forsythe in Dead I Well May Be very quickly throws us into the dark and violent world he lives in, and shows him to be if not a willing participant, at least a compliant and resigned one.

As a person who is not particularly drawn to violence as a selling point, I have had to think a bit about why this series works for me. True, the writing is tight and at times gorgeous, and the darkness of the series is relieved by the author's periodic wit. Still, we are left with the conundrum of the appeal of the central character. I must admit that I was a bit baffled by it, especially in reading this second, but for me, third of this very compelling series.

And then I thought of Odysseus.

Now let me say right out front that at its heart,this is an action series. If you liked Matt Damon in the Jason Bourne movies, then you should be saying your prayers that someone in Hollywood will see the commercial potential of this series. But it remains true that these books are more literary at their roots and so the Odysseus reference seems fair.

Michael Forsythe starts in Belfast, and though this may be a spoiler, ends in Belfast. He does, in effect, live out his own odyssey, and spends his time in various lands with various snares, just as Odysseus does. Although the third book, The Bloomsday Dead, actually models itself on the plan of Joyce's Ulysses, which in turn is also based on The Odyssey, I don't mean to imply that this is a deliberate pattern of the books. But I will say that thinking about the character of Odysseus may prove helpful in thinking about the character of Michael Forsythe. Because the chief word that springs to mind for both characters is "cunning". Not kind, not compassionate, although both characters do at times exhibit these traits, but cunning. Like Odysseus, Michael Forsythe makes survival his highest value. Odysseus does this because he intends to return home, no matter the pain, and no matter the cost. Forsythe never makes this goal plain, even to himself, but in fact, there is a Penelope, though not as Penelope ever imagined herself, and there is even a Telemachus of sorts, though the less I say about that the better.

I believe that Odysseus is a type of human consciousness and Michael Forsythe is a reflection of that type. Although we see Odysseus in a heroic light, Forsythe casts a different sort of light. In a way, he shows the limits of the heroic mold. Odysseus survives by embodying the heroic values of courage, resourcefulness, foresight, and yes, cunning. So does Michael. But in these, our latter times, the ending is not so neat. Michael Forsythe, at the end of the day, is not a Hero, but a human being. And human beings carry within them the history of all their actions--an anti-heroic tale indeed.

Fifty Grand, by Adrian Mckinty--a limerick synopsis

Said the Cuban detective Mercado
On a trip up to high Colorado,
"A hit-and-run cad
Has knocked off my dad--
To avenge him estoy obligado! "



(Yes, I will now move on to other titles...)

10 Good Reasons to buy Adrian McKinty's Fifty Grand

Adrian McKinty's latest book, featuring a Cuban detective named Mercado who has come to Colorado on a single-minded mission, is coming out on April 28th. Here are a few reasons to plunk down your hard earned dollars for it.


1.You’re a fan of high octane, action-driven, well-plotted suspense novels that pull no punches.

2.You’re a huge fan of McKinty’s earlier novels and have been marking off the days on your calendar until you can get his next one.

3.You’d like to be a fan of McKinty’s earlier novels, but seeing as for some reason they’re not all in print, you’re willing to start with one you can actually get.

4.You don’t know much about Cuba, but wouldn’t mind learning a little if it was presented in entertaining tidbits.

5.You know a lot about Cuba, but are always interested in intelligent commentary from someone who’s been there, whether or not they agree with you. (Okay--this description corresponds to pretty much nobody. I'm still leaving it in.)

6.You’re going to Cuba now that the restrictions have been lifted and need a page turner to read on the plane.

7.You love well-crafted fiction with the occasional lyric passage.(Yeah, yeah--I can live in hope that this is going to persuade anyone, can't I?)

8.You are a starlet just making your way in the world, and, having been invited to the Colorado resort scene for the weekend by a minor celebrity, would like some tips on how best to fit in.

9.You are intent upon revenge and would like some ideas for the best way to go about planning it.(Starlet, this reason might be for you, too--post-weekend.)

10.You have this thing for hot, Latina maids.

I deplore the last two reasons, of course, but if it means you are going to go out and buy the book, well, who am I to stop you? I mean, heaven knows, I'm no Detective Mercado.

Dead It Should Not Be

Sometimes we come to things in funny ways--the wrong way, so to speak, but it turns out to be the right way after all. I thought I didn't know how exactly I had come upon Adrian McKinty's work in the first place, because ordinarily, I am not someone lured in by blurbs like "Tough guy fiction at its gory, heart-stopping best." (The Miami Herald), or "peppered with enough violence to make Martin Scorsese wince" (Rocky Mountain News)

Such are the phrases on my paperback copy of The Bloomsday Dead, but of course now we come to the title and you have the answer to the mystery. Because of course a book that uses Bloomsday in the title means to have some traffic with James Joyce, and Ulysses, and having slogged my way through that fat tome, I feel entitled to all the Joycean reference perks I can get my hands on.

I'm not going to talk about The Bloomsday Dead, though. At least not right now. Or at least more than to say that after I started it, I realized that I was three books into a trilogy, which obviously isn't the best place to start, and yet I was already so sucked in that I decided to take my chances.

Well, you shouldn't follow my lead because you are going to get some major spoilers about the troubled saga of Michael Forsythe, immigrant/exile/fugitive from Northern Ireland if you do. So begin, as is usually wise, at the beginning. Find yourself a copy of Dead I Well May Be and hunker down with it.

That is if you can find it. I think you can, because there are used copies and library copies to be had, and it looks like you might be able to download it on Kindle, should you be so fortunate as to own one.But in print? No. Despite being the crucial first volume in a crime trilogy, the publishers have seen fit to take it out of print, which means you can't just walk into your local bookstore and pick up a copy, or even order it all that easily. I won't rant about that too much here, I'll only say persist. Find the book. It's worth the effort.

Despite warning you against this, I actually had a lot of enjoyment out of reading this book out of sequence. There is something to be said for reading the past while knowing what lies ahead. It allows you to be a bit more leisurely. You are not quite so swept along by the plot. (Though there are still plenty of surprises here even for one who, Cassandra-like, knows the future.)

Let's just say briefly, without giving anything away, that there is a kind of doom around young Michael Forsythe. Whether it's a Northern Irish doom, or a more personal one is hard to say. When, early on in the story, you get a glimpse of a real ruthlessness in him, and realize that this guy is not exactly like you and me (or at least he's not like me), you do actually have to find a way of reconciling that within yourself, because you've already identified with him and his situation. Still, there is some, what?--emptiness?--at the core of him that is never really explained, perhaps not really explainable, but which feels real, not cartoonlike. You see that he's been hardened, and yet you also see the cost.

There are many and various pleasures in this book. The action/adventure buff will certainly not go away disappointed. For me, though, two types of things stand out. There are the literary references, alluded to with a light and deft hand, which won't matter if you miss them, but will add to your pleasure if you spot them. And, more importantly, there is McKinty's power of observation in every setting, whether Belfast or New York or wherever, but especially of the nuances between different types of people and cultures. Let us just say he has not passed through the places on this earth that he's lived and visited with a veil drawn over his eyes.

So go track down a copy of this. You can probably find the copy I lost in Santa Cruz somewhere, for instance. Meantime, check out his always entertaining if highly opinionated blog. And then get yourself on some sort of waiting list for Fifty Grand, his forthcoming novel. It's a stand-alone, or at least the first in a series, and those in the know (which wouldn't be me, by the way) say it's his best yet.

Also, if you're interested in a slightly less meandering, more on point discussion of Michael Forsythe, check Brian O'Rourke's blog for his take on all this. And you can check out one of Peter Rozovsky's McKinty posts at the always scintillating Detectives Without Borders here, which will in turn lead you on to an interview with McKinty himself.