2013 crime. It's 1982, and Sean Duffy, one of the few Catholic
detectives in the RUC, has responsibility for a torso found in a
rubbish pile. The victim was frozen before he was dumped, and he
actually died of an obscure poison…
I found the first book very effective in conveying the period
atmosphere of Belfast in the later Troubles, and in particular the way
that "ordinary" murder was swamped by the effects of the
paramilitaries. That's still here. But this time some of the
specific period detail, not just the Falklands War (and its effects
on the British Army's presence in Ireland) or the way everyone reckons
the DeLorean factory in Dunmurry is a bit dodgy, but things like what
songs were in the charts, feels… forced? Artificial? Just a bit too
pat, perhaps, feeling too much like someone who grew up then (as
McKinty did) trying to remember it now with the help of reference
books rather than like an actual story told at the time.
I went out into the car park and said "Shite! Shite! Shite!" before
lighting a fag. I tried to think of a curse but Irish articulacy had
clearly declined since the days of Wilde and Yeats, Synge and Shaw.
Three ‘shites’ and a ciggie, that was what we could come up with in
these diminished times
The detection starts well, but then peters out, in a way that's
realistic but unusual in crime fiction. When it picks up again,
suddenly Duffy is getting to bed with every attractive woman he meets
(involved in the case or not), coincidences pile up, and the whole
ending is completely avoidable tragedy.
The atmosphere is solid, but the story told in front of it is
dispiriting. This may well be deliberate.
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