In the Morning I'll Be Gone: A Detective Sean Duffy Novel Paperback – March 4, 2014

This will be a hard review to write, if only because I don’t want to come across as a fan boy. Adrian McKinty’s In the Morning I’ll Be Gone is that good.imageI waxed rhapsodic about the first of the Troubles Trilogy (The Cold Cold Ground) and raved about its successor (I Hear the Sirens in the Street). In the Morning I’ll Be Gone not only builds on its predecessors, it improves on elements previously introduced.September 1983. Sean Duffy has been banished from the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) after the blowback from the case solved in Sirens. We see what life is like for a street peeler in Troubles Northern Ireland until Duffy meets—well, I’m not one to give away even intermediate plot twists. Let’s just say McKinty uses the early parts of the book to get the plot engine running while showing in stark terms what life is like on the “front lines” of what had become a guerrilla war. Duffy’s unit patrols along the border, where snipers in the Republic can take pot shots with little fear of pursuit.Everything that distinguishes the earlier books is here, ratcheted up a notch. McKinty’s greatest skill may be his ability to make so many diverse elements serve the story. Some authors write thrillers; some character studies. Others prefer puzzle mysteries in the English tradition. There are authors who like to make setting a “character.” In the Morning I’ll Be Gone places a locked room puzzle mystery in the context of a thriller that could not have taken place anywhere but Northern Ireland during The Troubles. There are no stereotypical characters, and Duffy is as cynical a hero as you’ll to find. He does what he does for his own reasons, yet is not an antihero; his priorities are not always in synch with his superiors’. Throw in the Ellroy-esque elements of weaving historical figures and events into the story seamlessly and inextricably and a dash of political commentary that makes sense in a Realpolitik way in the light of future—to Duffy—events, and you’ve hit some of the elements that make In the Morning I’ll Be Gone an extraordinary book.That’s right: some. As if all of the above weren’t enough, the writing is fluid, the reading effortless. An Irish accent will come to mind when reading the dialog. Never showy, McKinty always knows the right word to keep the reader embraced in his vivid and continuous dream. There are no loose threads in the tapestry of the writing. A lesson in Irish history is not the least of the takeaways, though one never feels lectured. Even the solution to the locked room element is prepared in advance to create an aura of surprise and inevitability.Each book of the trilogy works well as a standalone, though I strongly recommend reading them in order. Each sets the stage for its successor to build upon, which makes the payoff of In the Morning I’ll Be Gone that much more rewarding. McKinty has sworn there will be only three books in the Duffy series, though the ending leaves him a trap door to continue. My desire to see him give Duffy at least one more go is tempered by wondering what McKinty will come up with next, as he routinely exceeds my now-excessive expectations.

One of my all time favorite mystery series by one of my all time favorite crime authors returns for the third installment. Adrian McKinty, author of such tremendous books like the Michael Forsythe trilogy (start with #1, Dead I Well May Be), has crafted a fascinating series featuring Sean Duffy, the Catholic peeler on the mostly Protestant Irish police force during The Troubles, in 1980s Northern Ireland.When we last left Detective Duffy, in I Hear the Sirens in the Street, he'd been cashiered out of his detective job, busted down to street police when he stepped on some powerful toes. In The Morning I'll Be Gone finds Duffy helping out back at his old stomping grounds in Carrickfergus (the author's actual home town) after reports of a massive breakout by IRA prisoners hits the wires. One of the escapees is his old school chum, Dermot McCann, a gifted explosives man.Not much happens then but The Powers That Be finally find a real excuse to boot him off the force and Duffy begins to think about his future after the police. But there are other official groups that look to him for help in finding McCann before he does something spectacular, so Duffy gets dragged back in.As part of his search for McCann, Duffy gets an offer for more information on his whereabouts. But he needs to solve a classic "locked room" death, which everyone just assumes is an accident, before the information will be turned over. But the clock is running, Duffy's leash is getting shorter and the mystery, if it is one, doesn't seem to be unraveling fast enough. Can Duffy solve the mystery, track down McCann and prevent something spectacular from happening?Wow, what a great read! McKinty mentioned on his blog, The Psychopathology Of Everyday Life, that In The Morning I'll Be Gone had won the 2014 Ned Kelly award, given to the best crime fiction by an Australian writer (he lives in St. Kilda, Melbourne now). It reminded me of how much I just loved this series so far, so I took the plunge and picked it up for my Kindle. I started the day I bought it and finished it 2 days later, as I just couldn't put it down.The Troubles are brought to life with startling clarity. As I mentioned in my review of I Hear Sirens In The Street, there still isn't a good, unbiased history of The Troubles (I even asked Mr. McKinty on Twitter if there was), although the BBC pages work pretty well. How Duffy checks under the car every time for tilt bombs, the offhand discussions of bombings, the truly depressed nature of everything around, really bring it home.But it isn't all gray. Duffy has strongly held tastes in music (he feels the early 80s are a real wasteland for music), likes to toke, and can't avoid being insubordinate. And I liked the resolution of this book much more than the previous book, which felt rushed. And I really loved the nearly completely unconnected "locked room" mystery, which he works at for most of the book, before getting back on McCann's trail.According to Goodreads, there's another book in the series, Sixteen Shells from a Thirty Ought Six, due out next year, so I can hardly wait!

In The Morning is a lurid, over the top police procedural set in 1980s Northern Ireland. Our hero, Sean Duffy, has been busted down to sergeant and has been posted to the South Armagh border due to past indiscretions Sean is not happy, despite the helicopter rides.In a roundabout way - and without giving too much away - Sean Duffy finds himself given one last chance to prove himself. He is put on a mission to find a missing man. This gets him out of Armagh and back knocking on doors of Derry Housing Executive flats and making furtive trips across to Donegal. So far so good. But then Duffy gets involved in investigating a coid case murder of young woman who had been minding a bar on the shores of Lough Neagh near Antrim. Things go a bit Jonathan Creek as Duffy wrestles with a locked room mystery. To be honest, it all feels a bit improbable, and the relation of this plot-ette to the main story is contrived. But it is also a bit of fun.The main manhunt, once we get back to it, seems to be stuck on with sellotape. But despite the far-from-seamless join, the denouement is well done. There is an OMG moment when you realise the main historical event it is all leading up to, and Adrian McKinty has a nice touch in blending subsequent reality with some personal speculation. These end scenes rescue what would have been a fairly poor novel and redeem it int a fairly good novel.I still don't believe in Sean Duffy. He doesn't act or think like a policeman. His living arrangements, walking up his front driveway on a loyalist housing estate in riot gear is just not the way things were. Buying dope off the crime squad ditto. And I know Adrian McKinty will read this and say 'but I created this fiction and if I want to have policeman walking up their driveways in riot gear I can', but when you trade on verisimilitude, it just punches a bit of a hole in the suspension of disbelief.Adrian McKinty is worth reading. He tells a good story and his style is engaging. However, I do wonder whether he could sometime do something slightly less lurid.

1984. Sean Duffy is a Catholic officer in the RUC, hated by both sides of the sectarian divide, living in the middle of a protestant housing estate. His career's been wobbly lately and by the start of this book, Internal Affairs are keen to get rid of him once and for all. But a mass escape from the Maze Prison, led by an old schoolfriend of Duffy's, makes MI5 come knocking on his door and soon Sean, with his rank restored, finds himself involved in one of the most audacious terrorist crimes ever committed on English soil.Nothing is ever simple with Duffy, though. The route to his old schoolfriend lies via a locked-room mystery as fine as any invented although, as Sean points out, the reason magicians keep their secrets so well is that people would be disappointed by how banal they turn out to be. And he knows better than anyone that Ulster justice is often rough justice.If I have one cavil with this excellent novel, it’s that I’ve always admired the way McKinty immersed himself in the early 80s, not blurring it with winking hindsight. That suddenly disappears at the end of this novel as Sean reflects that Thatcher will die in a hotel, just not this one, and an MI5 officer gives a remarkably prescient rundown of what is likely to happen in Northern Ireland over the next thirty years.Is this the last Sean Duffy novel? It’s been billed as trilogy, but McKinty wouldn’t be the first to break that when it suits him. I feel that there's still plenty of mileage in the character.

I hadn't been long in London when Margaret Thatcher came to power, and every single day brought bewildering news from Ireland about 'Troubles' that had a nasty habit of spilling - apparently indiscriminately - into the streets of England. It was all a lie and a fit up - there was a civil war going on, we just weren't supposed to know.McKinty resuscitates this time from the viewpoint of those in Northern Ireland itself - recreating and explaining that ferocious, chaotic time and place so vividly that one can see, taste and smell every location and event. But this is no travelogue - it's a tour de force of action, plot and character seething with feeling and written from the POV of its witty, flawed hero - a smart and nervy Catholic who, bucking every home-grown cliche, has become a detective in the notoriously Protestant RUC.This would provide interest enough in any decent cop procedural or thriller... but the writing grabs me too. McKinty's use of dialect and language is peerless. Dialogue, wry observation and local idiom cause each sentence by turns to seduce you or leap at you, off the page.These books are a delight for any reader with a love for the possibilities and rhythms of language. McKinty owns the language like few others writing today and despite my generally throw-away attitude towards this genre I know I'll be reading them again.

Book three in the Sean Duffy trilogy. I read book four first and there are now six Duffy books (yes the trilogy has stretched somewhat).Duffy has been thrown out of the RUC and is struggling. His drug use is more explicit in this book whereas it was hinted at in earlier books with the emphasis more on the vodka. An approach by MI5 gives him a case and a possibility of redemption. They are seeking an IRA man who Duffy once knew and want him to use his catholic background and connections to find the man. The ending was no great surprise but nicely done.I just love the writing, it is witty and original. McKinty always introduces a few real historic incidents and figures as peripheral characters, including a few high profile hard men. The book is littered with stark descriptions of bleak Belfast in the 80s.I love these books and can't wait to read the next one.

I started reading this two days ago and finished it yesterday. The first 100 pages are not particularly gripping but once the investigation into Lizzie's death unfolds, I found it gripping and read right through to the end. I didn't see the final twist coming (as with many books of this style it was fantastical but I guess none of us really knows the truth) and would definitely read another of his books.