*Starred Review*
McKinty, Adrian. The Cold Cold Ground: A Detective Sean Duffy Novel.
Seventh Street Bks: Prometheus. (Troubles Trilogy, Bk. 1). Nov. 2012. c.328p. ISBN 9781616147167. pap. $15.95. M
What better cover for a serial killer than the political hunger strikes, car bombs, and street riots of Northern Ireland’s “troubles”? Det. Sean Duffy, a rarity as a Catholic cop, doesn’t step back from digging deep into a case in which gay men are being killed and mutilated with symbolic messages (such as cut-off hands) and more obscure, artistic clues. But as Duffy learns more about the victims, he wonders if their deaths aren’t politically motivated after all. Then, when a local missing woman turns up dead and is presumed to have killed herself, initially only Duffy senses that she was murdered and that her death connects with those of the gay men. By now, he has managed to alienate some powerful folks in the activist movement, and he might have to be silenced, too.
VERDICT: For fans of Stewart Neville’s crime novels, a new and harrowing Irish trilogy is underway. At turns violent and labyrinthine, McKinty’s (Dead I Well May Be) fine police procedural is also the ultimate page-turner. I cannot wait for Book Two!
Pretty sweet huh? I'm over the moon, actually. And there's more good news. Although The Cold Cold Ground won't officially be released in the USA until November 10th you can get it early, right now on Amazon.com, here.
32 comments:
Well deserved, but are Library Journal reviews always so brief?
Well that's good timing.
Maybe Paul Constant at the Stranger (Seattle) will get to read CCG and review it. He's got a lot of eyeballs on his posts and recommendations. I've already posted a comment on one of his posts a while back about you. I'll do it again, for what little it's worth.
Cary
They have a LOT of books to cover!
Sheiler
Have you got an address for him? I'll send him a copy.
The Cold Cold Ground also got a starred review in this month's booklist, but I dont have a login code for that magazine so you'll just have to take my word for it. This is the bit they give you before the jump:
The Cold Cold Ground.
McKinty, Adrian (author).
Nov. 2012. 325p. Prometheus/Seventh Street, paperback, $15.95 (9781616147167).
STARRED REVIEW.
First published October 2012 (Booklist).
Irish novelist McKinty returns to his roots with the first book of the Troubles Trilogy, set in ..
Excellent news Adrian, and well deserved, congratulations!
I got my copy from amazon last week. Should get to it in about a week or so. Sounds great!
Lovely review of a great book. I have just pre-ordered Sirens with a fantastic new indy bookshop in Edinburgh. Will be a nice start to the new year. Comes out at the same time as The Chessman by Peter May - final in the Black House trilogy that I have been enjoying.
Deb
Thank you.
Very
Hope you like it!
Dan
I've been reading those Peter Mays as audios so I'm looking forward to the new one too!
Dont know how this works but you can read the full booklist review on the Amazon.com listing for The Cold Cold Ground, here.
also I should add that I do read all the customer reviews so if you want to add your own to the amazon listing I would very much appreciate it.
So happy for you, and I'm already on the list for Sirens. I agree wholeheartedly with the review.
Lil
Here's hoping some other people notice the book. I'd really hate it if this one just died in the U.S. like, alas, most of my others...
nicssjoAdrian (have been to pub on way back from a 13-hour day, so not articulate).. I may take the piss now and again, but your work is excellent, and I suppose writing alone, you don't get the support 'groups' but this is well-deserved praise.. I very much look forward to Sirens..
Deb
What I find frustrating is that there are so many people who would like this book but they'll never get to hear about because the autumn season will be dominated by Lehane, Nesbo, Connolly etc. etc. so a niche book like this with good reviews in the trades but essentially no marketing behind it will peak at about 10,000 on the Amazon.com sales rankings and then gradually slink down the rankings and disappear forever.
I'm friendly with someone who works there and will let you know of an address if I can get it from her.
Don't despair! just keep doing good things because you know that is what makes you happy - we all know you have to make a living, but as you said in the post on D+D, life is so random... and marketing budgets are tiny for the things that matter!! (speaking with my museum hat on - my and my colleagues fabulous outputs often reach a much smaller audience than we know would like, as we have so little to promote our little miracles.. I have just done two lectures back to back (an hour apart) to relatively small audiences (total 250=ish for both lectures), tho I know more would've liked to hear about what I was talking on - but first they would have had to hear about it happening!!!
and I have just posted a review on Amazon- meant to do that ages ago...
and I've put my Amazon review on Facebook..
Charlie Brown, I think this one is going to get noticed.
I saw the Booklist starred review a couple of days ago, but now seem to not be able to get access myself, so I will just report that it was good.
Deb
Thanks for that! I really appreciate it. I got either sock puppetted or trolled a month or so ago on amazon uk where someone hit me with several crazy 1 star reviews. I think they were all the same person. It might have been part of the same thing that Stuart Neville rumbled or it might just have been a lone nut, but even so every review helps get my average back on Amazon uk and get noticed on amazon us
Seana
I hope so! I'm going to see if I can track down that Booklist review.
Seana
I hope so! I'm going to see if I can track down that Booklist review.
I'm here to tell everyone the starred review was much deserved. I haven't read a better crime novel this year.
Peter
Thanks for that!
I found a way in. Here's the Booklist 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
Seana
Great! Many thanks, I'll cut and paste that in a new blogpost tomorrow. Booklist have been pretty good to me over the years but it might just be coincidence because I think its a different reviewer every time.
Or it could be that they just appreciate good writing.
I know...crazy thought.
I am having a well-deserved Saturday lie-in with The Independent.. There is a section '50 best winter reads' .. I got to the 'Crime & Thriller' section.. I thought mmm and returned to your blog to confirm that you had written y'day : "What I find frustrating is that there are so many people who would like this book but they'll never get to hear about because the autumn season will be dominated by Lehane, Nesbo, Connolly etc. etc." - lo and behold, the Independent listing includes all the aforementioned writers (there are ten recommendations in this category..), mainly selected by Rebecca Armstrong..
Congrats !!! I'm looking forward to it :)
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