He seemed to enjoy inserting lots of 80s pop culture references - Inspector Duffy is fond of music, and movies, giving plenty of opportunity for gratuitous namechecking.

The Cold Cold Ground is dark and gritty, and Adrian McKinty's writing was very similar to Stuart Neville's. How is this case tied to the apparent suicide of a hunger striker's estranged wife? Duffy starts getting pressure and threats from all sides to wrap the case up in a tidy and agreeable fashion that leaves out theories about serial killers. (The assumption is that these types don't exist in Northern Ireland, because anyone with those proclivities could just join one of the many murderous factions that would provide them with plenty of victims.) Hunger strikes are going on, and the IRA doesn't want them being eclipsed in the news by sensational stories about a serial killer targeting homosexuals. His superiors, of course, are not thrilled by this. Then another 'poofter' is found dead, and Duffy is convinced that Northern Ireland has its first bonafide serial killer.

Then they find a note shoved up the victim's rectum, and Duffy's investigation uncovers evidence that the victim was fond of taking other things up there as well. At first it looks like a pretty routine bit of dirty business, just another Fenian caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. It doesn't really feel much different, though - Sean Duffy, a Catholic police inspector, has to deal with the same shady characters, corruption, and collusion between sworn enemies, just in an environment where bombs are still going off and Northern Ireland policemen are fair game for IRA assassins.ĭuffy is initially called on to investigate the death of a low-level IRA flunky. Unlike the Jack Lennon series, this one is set in the early 80s, at the height of the Troubles. The Cold Cold Ground is the second 'Belfast Noir' series I've started, after reading Stuart Neville's Jack Lennon series. Could this be Northern Ireland’s first serial killer, or another paramilitary feud? Another is discovered hanging from a tree. The Cold Cold Ground is the start of a major new series from Adrian McKinty, author of the acclaimed Falling Glass, Fifty Grand and the DEAD trilogy.įeaturing Catholic cop Sean Duffy whose outsider status in the mostly Protestant RUC makes it as hard to do his job as the criminals he’s fighting, this is the start of a new series set in Troubles-era Belfast.

The cold cold ground by adrian mckinty