Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
Belfast 1988: A man is found dead, killed with a bolt from a crossbow in front of his house. This is no hunting accident. But uncovering who is responsible for the murder will take Detective Sean Duffy down his most dangerous road yet, a road that leads to a lonely clearing on a high bog where three masked gunmen will force Duffy to dig his own grave.
Hunted by forces unknown, threatened by Internal Affairs, and with his relationship on the rocks, Duffy will need all his wits to get out of this investigation in one piece.
As a long-time fan of Adrian McKinty's storytelling, I was absolutely stoked to see him have some long-overdue huge success with his most recent novel THE CHAIN. McKinty has been an outstanding storyteller for ages, racking up critical acclaim and awards wins and delivering rich, textured crime tales. But through the vagaries of international publishing and publicity foci, his books hadn't gotten into the hands of millions of readers like you thought they would have, given his talent and just how damned good they were.
Recently I've been doing lots of long solo walks through the parks and playing fields near us during the pandemic, and thus listening to a lot more audiobooks. So I decided to load up several of McKinty's outstanding Sean Duffy series for a revisit or a 'first read' (listen) as the case may be.
Audibly, I began at the end, with POLICE AT THE STATION AND THEY DON'T LOOK FRIENDLY, the sixth of McKinty's Sean Duffy tales. It took me a wee while into the first walk to adjust to Gerard Doyle's strong accent, but I soon settled into a rhythm with him and his narration really flowed well while fitting perfectly with the exciting and very Norn Irish story he was delivering.
The sixth Duffy tale begins at what may well be the end for Duffy himself: a prologue where he's marched into the countryside to dig his own grave. We then flash back to the case that led to Duffy facing Irish paramilitaries' version of a gallows walk, the unusual killing of a local drug dealer.
Called back from a holiday taking his baby daughter and girlfriend to visit his parents, Duffy encounters a chaotic crime scene. The victim has been shot by crossbow, neighbours are rubbernecking, and a hungry goat is threatening to munch away evidence after other cops have vacated following an incident. From fear to high farce, McKinty wastes no time showing his skill at eliciting an emotional response in readers (or listeners). Duffy then rolls through an increasingly knotted investigation, thwarted at several turns by his colleagues and superiors as much as the criminals.
Most presume the crossbow bolt was vigilantes or paramilitary payback for the drug dealer, though there's no public declaration of responsibility. Then the victim's wife goes missing, and Duffy is pressured to end the investigation, while dealing with some internal police force foes gaining in power.
Can he survive being investigated by his own colleagues, as well as hits puts out on his life?
McKinty has taken readers through quite the journey with Duffy through the six books, and things come to crisis point in POLICE AT THE STATION AND THEY DON'T LOOK FRIENDLY.
There is so much to enjoy about this book, and the series as a whole. McKinty wonderfully evokes the 1980s atmosphere of Thatcherite Britain and the smouldering tensions and stark dangers of the Troubles. There's a real richness and freshness to McKinty's storytelling that elevates the Sean Duffy series among a plethora of police procedural series out there. We get keen insights into how it felt to be living through a now-historical period of a longstanding conflict on the Emerald Isle. And that's a key - McKinty makes readers feel, not just skip through a twisting plotline curious as to what may happen or how things may end. There's an emotional and intellectual connection, expertly crafted through the fullness of the characters and the richness of the setting, along with issues raised and explored.
McKinty has been open about the fact that he initially conceived the Sean Duffy books as a trilogy. So readers are extraordinarily lucky that we've gotten twice that (hopefully with more to come).
Duffy is a terrific central character. Though he exhibits some traits familiar to mystery lovers, in McKinty's hands he feels fully rounded and nuanced. In POLICE AT THE STATION AND THEY DON'T LOOK FRIENDLY he's under pressure personally (as a new Dad with less-than-simple family and in-law relationships) and professionally. Huge pressure. Life and death - not just his own.
It was a real joy to read (listen) to this tale, to soak in McKinty's wonderful writing. The Northern Irishman abroad brings style and substance to his storytelling, along with exciting plotlines.
A terrific book in a superlative series. One of the very, very best around. In the well-stocked pub of crime fiction, McKinty ain't merely a fine Irish whiskey, he's a bottle of Midleton Very Rare.
Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned features writer from New Zealand, now living in London. In recent years he’s interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at books festivals on three continents. He has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and the McIlvanney Prize, and is founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards and co-founder of Rotorua Noir. His first non-fiction book, SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, was published in 2020. You can heckle him on Twitter.
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