2015 crime, fourth in the Sean Duffy series. Belfast, 1985: what
looks like a family murder followed by a failson's suicide turns out
to have wide-ranging implications.
The things that are irritants about the Sean Duffy series are
still here: he still reaches solutions by badgering suspects into
confessing rather than by deduction or gathering evidence even though
everyone treats him as though he were some supernally great detective,
and women still go weak in the knees at the sight of him. What seems
like a small case turns out to be connected to historical events.
But I keep coming back, and I keep enjoying them. (All right, I did
read this right after I'd decided not to continue with The Children
of Men, so I'd have been feeling positive about nearly anything.)
The most crucial thing, I think, is that McKinty manages to make Duffy
interesting to read about, even as it's very clear just why he's ended
up in his present situation and that he (unlike everyone who knows him
including the reader) will never see his way out of it. The series
isn't keeping up the promise of its first volume, but it still has
fine moments.
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