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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
This may well be my favorite Sean Duffy book yet. I think the author is really growing comfortable with his character and setting. The plot was completely engrossing and the premise was so clever. Okay, it may be far-fetched to think the PM would really do that, but I am willing to allow it! Looking forward to his next adventure.
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interesting enough read. A little melancholy sometimes. Actually, a lot melancholy.
Couldn't ever feel for the main character. Even though I have Irish roots, I don't relate to conflict in Ireland during the 80's.
I waffled between 2 and 3 stars, but decided on 3 because it kept me engaged. I won't be reading this author again though.
Couldn't ever feel for the main character. Even though I have Irish roots, I don't relate to conflict in Ireland during the 80's.
I waffled between 2 and 3 stars, but decided on 3 because it kept me engaged. I won't be reading this author again though.
adventurous
dark
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Wish Sean would stop drinking and smoking - says a lot when you care about the main character
Good yarn set in Ireland during the 80's. Characters are interesting and believable. Duffy has many a good line as a sardonic policeman who has a problem with authority but gets results".
The locked room sub-plot is enjoyable as a straight police procedural but like most such stories is a bit of a letdown when finally revealed.
The locked room sub-plot is enjoyable as a straight police procedural but like most such stories is a bit of a letdown when finally revealed.
I have lived in Northern Ireland for a short while in the nineties and enjoy listening to this series because McKinty really manages to capture the sense of the place. What drives me nuts, though, is how bad he is at writing female characters - and this book is no exception. They are always so two-dimensional! And don't even get me started on how he writes romance and sex - it's just terrible. And yet, I really enjoy the other aspects of his books.
The structure of trilogies must have some appeal for McKinty, not just because he has previous form. From the outside you can see that it could be quite a challenge to build a character's life and explore events in a proscribed number of books. And then it's over. For this reader it's a very bitter sweet experience. Especially when, from book number one, this series cemented itself as a big part of January's expectations.
Part of the appeal is obviously the central character Sean Duffy. An outsider in his own country and his own community, it's that viewpoint that makes him such an effective policeman. Not only is he not beholden, he sees everything in a slightly different manner. That idea of the cop as the ultimate outsider's nothing new, but there's something about the way that McKinty has built this scenario - within the framework of the Troubles - with the complications of religion, and ethnicity muddied further by cops versus crims, and the branches of the cops versus each other. It's a multi-layered environment drawn out elegantly by some clever, atmospheric and pointed story telling.
It also doesn't hurt that IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE opens with one of those openings we've come to expect:
"The beeper began to whine at 4.27pm on Wednesday, 25 September 1983. It was repeating a shrill C sharp at four-second intervals which meant - for those of us who had bothered to read the manual - that it was a Class 1 emergency. This was a general alert being sent to every off-duty policeman, police reservist and soldier in Northern Ireland. There were only five Class 1 emergencies and three of them were a Soviet nuclear strike, a Soviet invasion and what the civil servants who'd written the manual had nonchalantly called 'an extra-terrestrial trespass'."
From that moment on, until the final page is read, and the book is hugged just a little bit, the story builds. Set as it is in the time of the Troubles, there are cultural references throughout - music, clothes, and to the complications of life at that time. There's classical music references which cleverly reflect Duffy's mood and thinking, and there's humour. Beautifully dry, clever, dropped into the middle of conversations, type humour:
"I had to admit that he was impressive. You noticed the hair first. Kennedy hair was far in advance of anything Ireland had to offer. It was space-age hair. It was hair for the new millennium. Irish hair was stuck somewhere in 1927. Kennedy hair had put man on the fucking moon."
Built into all of the cultural and personality there is also a solid plot, interwoven with a good old fashioned locked room mystery. Which works - not just because of the timeframe, it's a good brain teaser. But the main focus remains that most difficult of issues, well known from the Troubles - terrorism and the IRA. Weaving the fictional into fact worked particularly well here, putting the timeframe into a definite context, and providing a real sense of the threat, and the grievance which gave rise to it.
If you're a fan of McKinty's books you'll also notice a Michael Forsythe cameo. Elegantly done and informative / clever into the bargain.
But then informative, clever, engaging and an undeniable favourite, IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE most definitely was. The only downside is that it's the third in the trilogy, and it's impossible not to feel very sad about that.
http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-morning-ill-be-gone-adrian-mckinty
Part of the appeal is obviously the central character Sean Duffy. An outsider in his own country and his own community, it's that viewpoint that makes him such an effective policeman. Not only is he not beholden, he sees everything in a slightly different manner. That idea of the cop as the ultimate outsider's nothing new, but there's something about the way that McKinty has built this scenario - within the framework of the Troubles - with the complications of religion, and ethnicity muddied further by cops versus crims, and the branches of the cops versus each other. It's a multi-layered environment drawn out elegantly by some clever, atmospheric and pointed story telling.
It also doesn't hurt that IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE opens with one of those openings we've come to expect:
"The beeper began to whine at 4.27pm on Wednesday, 25 September 1983. It was repeating a shrill C sharp at four-second intervals which meant - for those of us who had bothered to read the manual - that it was a Class 1 emergency. This was a general alert being sent to every off-duty policeman, police reservist and soldier in Northern Ireland. There were only five Class 1 emergencies and three of them were a Soviet nuclear strike, a Soviet invasion and what the civil servants who'd written the manual had nonchalantly called 'an extra-terrestrial trespass'."
From that moment on, until the final page is read, and the book is hugged just a little bit, the story builds. Set as it is in the time of the Troubles, there are cultural references throughout - music, clothes, and to the complications of life at that time. There's classical music references which cleverly reflect Duffy's mood and thinking, and there's humour. Beautifully dry, clever, dropped into the middle of conversations, type humour:
"I had to admit that he was impressive. You noticed the hair first. Kennedy hair was far in advance of anything Ireland had to offer. It was space-age hair. It was hair for the new millennium. Irish hair was stuck somewhere in 1927. Kennedy hair had put man on the fucking moon."
Built into all of the cultural and personality there is also a solid plot, interwoven with a good old fashioned locked room mystery. Which works - not just because of the timeframe, it's a good brain teaser. But the main focus remains that most difficult of issues, well known from the Troubles - terrorism and the IRA. Weaving the fictional into fact worked particularly well here, putting the timeframe into a definite context, and providing a real sense of the threat, and the grievance which gave rise to it.
If you're a fan of McKinty's books you'll also notice a Michael Forsythe cameo. Elegantly done and informative / clever into the bargain.
But then informative, clever, engaging and an undeniable favourite, IN THE MORNING I'LL BE GONE most definitely was. The only downside is that it's the third in the trilogy, and it's impossible not to feel very sad about that.
http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-morning-ill-be-gone-adrian-mckinty
This was a great follow-up to the mediocre 2nd instalment in the Sean Duffy series. Newly busted and to Sergeant then strong-armed out of the RUC, Duffy is recruited by MI5 to find an old schoolmate and Maze Prison escapee Dermot McCann, something Sean is only going to do if certain conditions are met.
This is a much tighter, fast-paced story that has factual happening interspersed within the fiction of the story. Sean is his usual morose, drug-taking, alcoholic dogged self as we move from Northern Ireland to England with his usual relentless pursuit of finding justice which always seems to be unattainable.
This is a much tighter, fast-paced story that has factual happening interspersed within the fiction of the story. Sean is his usual morose, drug-taking, alcoholic dogged self as we move from Northern Ireland to England with his usual relentless pursuit of finding justice which always seems to be unattainable.
'In the Morning I'll be Gone' by Adrian McKinty is a terrific novel, the third, in the Detective Sean Duffy mystery series! The books have continuing threads about Sean's personal and professional life, so I recommend readers begin with book one, [b:The Cold Cold Ground|13008754|The Cold Cold Ground (Detective Sean Duffy #1)|Adrian McKinty|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1355027843l/13008754._SX50_.jpg|18170309].
Duffy works as a police officer in Northern Ireland. The books take place in the 1980's during Northern Ireland's civil war between the Catholics and the Protestants. The series is heavy with the atmosphere of an urban guerrilla war, beautifully interwoven into the other, more police-type, mysteries. At the same time the British were wavering uncertainly between plunging in like bulls in a glass shop to support whoever they thought could stop the terrorism and pulling out of Northern Ireland completely. The dozens of terrorist gangs fighting each other and the British, and all of them killing supposed collaborators, made the job of ordinary police work the same as wrestling someone unknown in a bog in the middle of a maze designed with shrubbery consisting of nettles and thorns, with the occasional mine hidden here and there, and no light except maybe that reflected by the moon. Northern Ireland was a dystopic Mad Max wasteland, literally.
I have copied the cover blurb as it is accurate:
"A spectacular escape and a man-hunt that could change the future of a nation - and lay one man's past to rest. Sean Duffy's got nothing. And when you've got nothing to lose, you have everything to gain. So when MI5 come knocking, Sean knows exactly what they want, and what he'll want in return, but he hasn't got the first idea how to get it. Of course he's heard about the spectacular escape of IRA man Dermot McCann from Her Majesty's Maze prison. And he knew, with chilly certainty, that their paths would cross. But finding Dermot leads Sean to an old locked room mystery, and into the kind of danger where you can lose as easily as winning. From old betrayals and ancient history to 1984's most infamous crime, Sean tries not to fall behind in the race to annihilation. Can he outrun the most skilled terrorist the IRA ever created? And will the past catch him first?"
I love this particular blurb because while accurate, it gives nothing away of what has been going on in the previous novels or much of what is happening in this book in 'The Troubles' trilogy. I also love the cynical Sean Duffy, who is both Master and Blaster (Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome movie reference - hehe) when required.
Duffy works as a police officer in Northern Ireland. The books take place in the 1980's during Northern Ireland's civil war between the Catholics and the Protestants. The series is heavy with the atmosphere of an urban guerrilla war, beautifully interwoven into the other, more police-type, mysteries. At the same time the British were wavering uncertainly between plunging in like bulls in a glass shop to support whoever they thought could stop the terrorism and pulling out of Northern Ireland completely. The dozens of terrorist gangs fighting each other and the British, and all of them killing supposed collaborators, made the job of ordinary police work the same as wrestling someone unknown in a bog in the middle of a maze designed with shrubbery consisting of nettles and thorns, with the occasional mine hidden here and there, and no light except maybe that reflected by the moon. Northern Ireland was a dystopic Mad Max wasteland, literally.
I have copied the cover blurb as it is accurate:
"A spectacular escape and a man-hunt that could change the future of a nation - and lay one man's past to rest. Sean Duffy's got nothing. And when you've got nothing to lose, you have everything to gain. So when MI5 come knocking, Sean knows exactly what they want, and what he'll want in return, but he hasn't got the first idea how to get it. Of course he's heard about the spectacular escape of IRA man Dermot McCann from Her Majesty's Maze prison. And he knew, with chilly certainty, that their paths would cross. But finding Dermot leads Sean to an old locked room mystery, and into the kind of danger where you can lose as easily as winning. From old betrayals and ancient history to 1984's most infamous crime, Sean tries not to fall behind in the race to annihilation. Can he outrun the most skilled terrorist the IRA ever created? And will the past catch him first?"
I love this particular blurb because while accurate, it gives nothing away of what has been going on in the previous novels or much of what is happening in this book in 'The Troubles' trilogy. I also love the cynical Sean Duffy, who is both Master and Blaster (Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome movie reference - hehe) when required.