About this item

Fast-paced, evocative, and brutal, The Cold Cold Ground is a brilliant depiction of Belfast at the height of the Troubles - and of a cop treading a thin, thin line - from The New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Adrian McKinty."McKinty is one of the most striking and most memorable crime voices to emerge on the scene in years." - Tana FrenchNorthern Ireland, spring 1981. Hunger strikes, riots, power cuts, a homophobic serial killer with a penchant for opera, and a young womans suicide that may yet turn out to be murder: on the surface, the events are unconnected, but then things - and people - arent always what they seem. Detective Sergeant Duffy is the man tasked with trying to get to the bottom of it all. Its no easy job - especially when it turns out that one of the victims was involved in the IRA but was last seen discussing business with someone from the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force. Add to this the fact that, as a Catholic policeman, it doesnt matter which side hes on, because nobody trusts him, and Sergeant Duffy really is in a no-win situation.



About the Author

Adrian McKinty

Adrian McKinty is an Edgar Award winning crime novelist from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He has been shortlisted for the Dagger Award, Anthony Award, Theakston Award and has won the Ned Kelly Award, the Barry Award and the Edgar Award.

Adrian studied law at Warwick University and philosophy at Oxford University. In the early 90's he emigrated to New York City where he worked in bars, building sites and bookstores for seven years before moving to Denver, Colorado to become a high school English teacher. In 2009 he moved again, this time to Melbourne, Australia with his wife and kids.

His first Sean Duffy novel, The Cold Cold Ground, won the 2013 Spinetingler Award and was picked as one of the best crime novels of the year by The Times (of London) . The second Sean Duffy novel, I Hear The Sirens In The Street, won the 2014 Barry Award for best paperback original crime novel of the year.

In The Morning I'll Be Gone (Sean Duffy #3) won the 2014 Ned Kelly Award for best novel and was picked as one of the top 10 crime novels of 2014 by the American Library Association, The Daily Mail & The Toronto Star.

Gun Street Girl (Duffy #4) was shortlisted for the 2016 Edgar Award, the 2015 Ned Kelly Award, The 2016 Anthony Award and was picked as one of the best books of 2015 by The Boston Globe and The Irish Times.

Sean Duffy #5, Rain Dogs, won the 2017 Edgar Award (best paperback original) , was the Boston Globe's #1 Mystery novel of 2016, was an Irish Times book of the year and was shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2016, the 2016 Ned Kelly Award, the 2017 Barry Award and the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award 2016.

Sean Duffy #6 will be out in early 2017

newspaper reviews for some of the Duffy books:

If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland The Cold Cold Ground is the book he would have written.
The Times

A locked room mystery within a manhunt killer [is] a clever and gripping set-up that helps makes Duffy's third outing easily his best so far.
The Sunday Times

Not content with constructing a complex plot, McKinty further wraps his story around a deliciously old-fashioned locked room mystery, the solution to which holds the key to Duffy's entire investigation. Driven by McKinty's brand of lyrical, hard-boiled prose, leavened by a fatalistic strain of the blackest humour, In the Morning I'll Be Gone is a hugely satisfying historical thriller.
The Irish Times

[A] superb trilogy reaches its finality...The hunt for [Duffy's quarry] begins and ends spectacularly. McKinty is particularly convincing in painting the political and social backdrops to his plots. He deserves to be treated as one of Britain's top crime writers.
The Times

An action movie view of the Troubles...a fast and thrilling ride



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