Book Log 2020 #48: The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty

Sean Duffy is a man of some contradictions. He attended university, but left to become a cop.  He's a Catholic serving in the Royal Ulster Constabulatory, which is almost uniformly staffed by Protestants. He's pledged to uphold the law, but enjoys the occasional illegal substance. He's a good cop, but often finds himself battling these contradictions, in both his work and personal lives.

Making this no easier is that it's the early 1980s, and the Troubles are still raging in Northern Ireland. He's a target for the IRA as a cop, and for loyalist paramilitaries as a Catholic working and living in largely Protestant spaces. Hardly a page goes by where he's not looking under his car for a bomb.

It's in this difficult, stressful environment that Duffy has to investigate what appears to be a publicity killing - probably of a informer or other collaborator - and a suicide in some local woods. There's nothing obviously linking the killings, but as Duffy picks up on inconsistencies in each case, he starts to see there's something larger at work.

This is the first in a series, and I can only hope future books are as good as this one. It's sharply written, and full of detail that comes from McKinty's years as a crime reporter. Duffy has all of the bluff and bluster of literary detectives like John Rebus, but has a very different set of personal vulnerabilities that round his character out more fully. Looking forward to see where this series goes.