(Michael Forsythe might be, as one of his assailants puts ...)
Michael Forsythe might be, as one of his assailants puts it, 'un-f*cking-killable', but that doesn't seem to deter people from trying. He's living in Lima, reasonably well-hidden by the FBI's Witness Protection Program, but Bridget Callaghan, whose fiancé he murdered twelve years ago, has an enduring wish to see him dead.
(It's been five years since Michael Forsythe slaughtered D...)
It's been five years since Michael Forsythe slaughtered Darkey White and his crew of thugs in Harlem. Five years spent in the Witness Protection Program with a price on his head and not much to do with his days. Allowed to take a holiday at last, Michael heads to Spain, but he's arrested after a football riot and brought to a Spanish prison.
(Cuban cop Mercado has a score to settle, on behalf of a d...)
Cuban cop Mercado has a score to settle, on behalf of a deadbeat dad, a 'traitor' who skipped free from Castro's control to set up a new life working illegally in Colorado. He settled in a ski resort popular with the Hollywood set, where the facade is maintained by the immigrant cleaners and labourers who work for below minimum wage while the local sheriff is bribed to turn a blind eye. Hernandez Snr.'s dreams of fortune and freedom came to a swift end when he was killed in a hit-and-run accident.
(An illegal immigrant escaping the troubles in Belfast, yo...)
An illegal immigrant escaping the troubles in Belfast, young Michael Forsythe is strong and clever and fearless-just the man to be tapped by crime boss Darkey White to lead a gang of Irish thugs against the rising Dominican powers in Harlem and the Bronx. The time is pre-Giuliani New York, when crack rules the city and hundreds are murdered every month. Michael and his lads tumble through the streets, shaking down victims, drinking hard, and fighting block by bloody block. Soon Darkey anoints Michael his rising star. But when Michael seduces his boss's girl, the saucy, fickle Bridget, things quickly go south-south to Mexico, that is. Double-crossed and left to die in a Mexican prison, Michael plots his return to New York, there to wreak terrible vengeance on his betrayers.
(Killian makes a living enforcing other people's laws, col...)
Killian makes a living enforcing other people's laws, collecting debts, dealing out threats and finding people who do not wish to be found. Now regular McKinty hero Michael Forsythe sets Killian up with the best paid job of his life: Richard Coulter, an Irishman with political connections, and the owner of a budget airline, is willing to pay half a million to track down his ex-wife and children. But Killian discovers the real reason Coulter's ex is running, and helps her take refuge among his people, a community of Irish Travellers, who close ranks to protect them-for a little while at least..
(Two dead. One left in a car by the side of a road. He was...)
Two dead. One left in a car by the side of a road. He was meant to be found quickly. His killer is making a statement. The other is discovered hanging in a tree, deep in a forest. Surely a suicide: she'd just given birth, but there's no sign of the baby. Nothing seems to link the two, but Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy knows the links that seem to be invisible are just waiting to be uncovered. And as a policeman who has solved six murders so far in his career, but not yet brought a single case to court, Duffy is determined that this time, someone will pay.
(Sean Duffy knows there's no such thing as a perfect crime...)
Sean Duffy knows there's no such thing as a perfect crime. But a torso in a suitcase is pretty close. Still, one tiny clue is all it takes, and there it is. A tattoo. So Duffy, fully fit and back at work after the severe trauma of his last case, is ready to follow the trail of blood - however faint - that always, always connects a body to its killer. A legendarily stubborn man, Duffy becomes obsessed with this mystery as a distraction from the ruins of his love life, and to push down the seed of self-doubt that he seems to have traded for his youthful arrogance. So from country lanes to city streets, Duffy works every angle. And wherever he goes, he smells a rat...
(Sean Duffy's got nothing. And when you've got nothing lef...)
Sean Duffy's got nothing. And when you've got nothing left to lose, you have everything to gain, but only if you want it. So when MI5 come knocking, Sean knows exactly what they want, 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. And there's no coming back from this kind of losing.
(Based on true events, The Sun is God is dark, outrageous ...)
Based on true events, The Sun is God is dark, outrageous and hugely entertaining - historical crime fiction at its very best. It is 1906 and Will Prior is in self-imposed exile on a remote South Pacific island, working a small, and failing, plantation. He should never have told anyone about his previous existence as a military foot policeman in the Boer War, but a man needs friends, even if they are as stuffy and, well, German, as Hauptmann Kessler, the local government representative. So it is that Kessler approaches Will one hot afternoon, with a request for his help with a problem on a neighbouring island, inhabited by a reclusive, cultish group of European 'cocovores', who believe that sun worship and eating only coconuts will bring them eternal life.
(Gunrunners on the borders, riots in the cities, The Power...)
Gunrunners on the borders, riots in the cities, The Power of Love on the radio. And somehow, hanging on, is Detective Inspector Sean Duffy, a Catholic policeman in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The usual rounds of riot duty and sectarian murders are interrupted when a wealthy couple are shot dead while watching TV. Their son jumps to his death, leaving a note claiming responsibility. But something doesn't add up, and people keep dying. Soon Sean Duffy, Belfast's most roguish detective, is on the trail of a mystery that will pit him against shadowy US national security forces, and take him into the white-hot heart of the biggest political scandal of the decade.
(Denver, Colorado: a pretty, clever young girl working for...)
Denver, Colorado: a pretty, clever young girl working for an environmental charity, Victoria Patawasti is sleeping peacefully, unaware that she has barely an hour to live. As her killer slips into her apartment and draws a revolver in the darkness, Alex Lawson wakes up in Belfast. Twenty-four, sickly, and struggling to kick his heroin habit after a disastrous six-month stint in the drug squad of the Northern Ireland police force, Alex badly needs a chance to get back on track.
(When journalist Lily Bigelow is found dead in the courtya...)
When journalist Lily Bigelow is found dead in the courtyard of Carrickfergus castle, it looks like a suicide. But there are just a few things that bother Duffy enough to keep the case file open. Which is how he finds out that she was working on a devastating investigation of corruption and abuse at the highest levels of power in the UK and beyond. And so Duffy has two impossible problems on his desk: who killed Lily Bigelow? And what were they trying to hide?
(The usual rounds of riot duty and sectarian murders are i...)
The usual rounds of riot duty and sectarian murders are interrupted when a wealthy couple are shot dead while watching TV. Their son jumps to his death, leaving a note claiming responsibility. But something doesn't add up, and people keep dying. BOOK 5: Rain Dogs It's just the same things over and again for Sean Duffy. Riot duty. Heartbreak. Cases he can solve but never get to court. But what detective gets two locked room mysteries in one career?
Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly
(Belfast 1988: a man has been shot in the back with an arr...)
Belfast 1988: a man has been shot in the back with an arrow. It ain't Injuns and it isn't Robin Hood. But uncovering exactly who has done it will take Detective Inspector Sean Duffy down his most dangerous road yet, a road that leads to a lonely clearing on the 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.
Adrian McKinty is a British writer and novelist. He is considered one of the most striking and most memorable crime writers on the scene in years. His debut crime novel Dead I Well May Be was short-listed for the CWA Steel Dagger Award 2004 and was picked as the best debut crime novel of 2003 by the American Library Association.
Background
Adrian McKinty was born in 1968 in Carrickfergus, County Down, a town five miles outside Belfast in British Northern Ireland. In 1972, when McKinty was only five years old, twenty-six protesters in Derry, Northern Ireland, were shot by members of the British Parachute Regiment. This incident, known as Bloody Sunday, dramatically intensified the violence and caused an increase in enlistment in the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which was campaigning for Northern Ireland’s independence from Britain. McKinty’s youth was thus shrouded in scenes of horrific violence.
Education
Adrian studied law at Warwick University and politics and philosophy at Oxford University, where also trained as an attorney.
After attending Oxford University, McKinty immigrated illegally in the 1990s to New York City, where for five years he worked at various odd jobs, including security guard, teacher, construction worker, mail carrier, bartender, salesman, and a rugby coach. At one time, he sold books at the Barnes and Noble on Eighty-second Street and Broadway in New York City.
McKinty lived in Harlem in New York City and traveled for a time to India before eventually returning to the United States, where he took a job as a schoolteacher and settled in Denver. He taught high school in Denver and Boulder before moving to Melbourne Australia where he decided to write full time.
McKinty joined a number of Irish writers who have recently gravitated to crime writing such as John Banville, the winner of the 2005 Man Booker Prize for The Sea. Irish writer Frank Court, author of Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir (1996), describes McKinty as “a cross between American mystery writer Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyon.”
His debut young adult novel The Lighthouse Land was shortlisted for the 2008 Young Hoosier Award and the 2008 Beehive Award. The Dead Yard was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the 12 Best Novels of 2006 and won the 2007 Audie Award for best thriller/suspense.
McKinty is also a book critic and op-ed writer for The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Washington Post, Literary Hub, The Australian, The Irish Times and Harper.
McKinty’s novels contributed to an emerging genre known as Irish noir, which, scholars suggest, has been created by the collision of the older political and social violence with the newer crime-based violence produced as a result of the prosperous economic era that made Ireland into the Celtic Tiger.
His debut crime novel Dead I Well May Be was short-listed for the CWA Steel Dagger Award 2004 and was picked as the best debut crime novel of 2003 by the American Library Association. His first Sean Duffy novel The Cold Cold Ground won the 2013 Spinetingler Award and its sequel I Hear The Sirens In The Street was shortlisted for the 2013 Ned Kelly Award. In the Morning I'll be Gone won the 2014 Ned Kelly Award.
Gun Street Girl was shortlisted for the 2016 Edgar Award, the 2015 Ned Kelly Award, the 2016 Anthony Award, the 2016 Audie Award for Best Mystery, was a Boston Globe "Best Book of 2015" and an Irish Times "Best Crime Novel of 2015."
His Rain Dogs won the 2017 Edgar Award and the 2017 Barry Award. It was a Boston Globe Best Book of 2016, an Irish Times Best Crime Novel of 2016 and was shortlisted for the 2016 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, the 2016 Ned Kelly Award, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2016, and the 2017 Anthony Award.
Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly won the 2017 Ned Kelly Award, was short listed for the International Thriller Writers Awards 2018 (Best Paperback Original Novel), was short-listed for the 2017 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was picked as a Boston Globe best book of 2017.
In his religious affiliation Adrian McKinty is a Presbyterian.
Views
As is true with many successful writers, his various jobs and his sojourns in various geographic locales provided McKinty with myriad experiences from which to create interesting settings and unusual, dynamic, bigger-than-life characters. In all of his novels, McKinty exposes readers who might know little about Irish history to the long war waged in Ireland between Roman Catholics and Protestants. In particular, McKinty’s fast-paced, intensely violent mystery novels provide insights into a dark period in Irish history known as the Troubles, during which Republican and Loyalist paramilitary organizations in British-ruled Northern Ireland engaged in various forms of violence from the late 1960’s until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. McKinty’s characters - especially his dark, popular protagonist Michael Forsythe, who illegally immigrates to New York City to escape the Troubles in Northern Ireland - are all products of this violent era in Irish history.
Quotations:
“I grew up in this working-class housing estate and the books that they were telling us were the greatest books, it was like Penelope Lively or Julian Barnes or Martin Amis. It was all these upper middle class people who live in London and their fucking problems,” McKinty says. “ I lived in a street where it was 80 percent unemployment. After the factory closed everybody was unemployed, nobody had a job. These were hard working-class people, but people were making music, reading books, they were having discussions. There was this intellectual life that was going on.”
“I think the poetry that came out of Belfast, and especially the Queen’s University set, in the 1970s and ’80s – y’know, Paul Muldoon and Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Ciaran Carson – that was probably the finest body of work since the Gaelic Renaissance, up there with the work of Yeats and Synge and Lady Gregory.”
“I think there is a lot of very, very prosperous writing. [Those] writers have to distill it down to these genuine moments of the human experience. It just feels so cluttered and mannered and pressured. All that sort of swirl of writing, and also so fake, and so upper-middle class.”
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
McKinty has been described by crime-fiction specialist Otto Penzler as “the super-talented Irishman.”
Irish writer Frank Court, author of Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir (1996), describes McKinty as “a cross between American mystery writer Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyon.”
Interests
Writers
Paul Muldoon, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Ciaran Carson
Connections
By moving to Denver, Adrian McKinty got married, and the couple had two daughters Arwynn and Sophie. McKinty encouraged his wife to look for another job, and thus they ended up settling in Melbourne, Australia - Irish dad, American mom, Australian kids.
In 2017 McKinty was honored with the Ned Kelly Award, which is an Australia's leading literary award for crime writing in both the crime fiction and true crime genres.
In 2017 McKinty was honored with the Ned Kelly Award, which is an Australia's leading literary award for crime writing in both the crime fiction and true crime genres.
