Duffy winds up in the clut ches of the IRA. ( )

1988 Sean Duffy 1988. Belfast still going to hell. Sean still stuck in his rut. Baby Emma growing fast. Beth wants to move away from Coronation Road. Two drug dealers are murdered with a crossbow. Strange crimes in a place where everyone has guns. Strange still, no one claims the kills. Then the wife of second murdered drug dealer vanishes too. Political pressure to close the cases. Sean and the Crabman fail their police physicals. I liked this book because even within the realm of police stories, it felt like real life. Except for the extraordinary amount of violence, which I must say is definitely not part of my life. ( )

Sean Duffy is well-known in the Royal Ulster Constabulary as a tenacious detective, and a troublemaker whose career will never progress beyond his current level. He has solved a number of difficult murder cases, but for various reasons the perpetrators have not been tried and sentenced for their crimes. This time around Duffy investigates the murder of a man who only recently arrived in the area, with no ties to the usual sources of violent crime. When the man’s wife is disappeared, Duffy and his team realize there might be more to this case than they first thought. With little evidence to go on, his bosses want him to close the case pending additional developments. But Duffy is far too stubborn, and enlists his colleagues Lawson and McCrabben to get to the bottom of it. As, of course, they do.

Duffy’s personal life has previously been treated as an unimportant side topic, with only the briefest updates and minimal character development. But he is now a father, and Adrian McKinty gives this new side of Duffy and his additional responsibilities the coverage it deserves, and shows him striving to balance professional demands with some now expanded goals for his life. I’m very interested to see how this plays out in the next book. ( )

The sixth of the Sean Duffy novels and my favorite so far. The philosophical Duffy is even more ruminative now that he's a father, and he is questioning his future with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The seemingly random killing of a drug dealer leads him into a maze of sectarianism, betrayal, and corruption. This was a perfectly paced, thoughtful crime novel that opens strongly and never lets up. ( )

I thought this was the best of the series. Lots more excitement and action, great characters as always, and even a seemingly happy ending (you never know, though).

As usual, there's a lot of references to music in addition to the usual title being derived from songs by Tom Waits. It's pretty funny when Duffy has practically got himself and his entire family killed, and he's racing along at 140 mph, and has to play the radio because he doesn't think putting in a tape would be a good idea. He's always thinking about what music to play no matter what's happening.

Also, poor Sean gets his usual abuse from up above and from the press, all of it unfair. But he accepts it as normal, which unfortunately, it seems to be. But in this story, we get some clue as to why his record looks so bad. Although, to be fair, he's a bit too nice and fair, so his arrest record is not as good as it could be.

This one also has some pretty terrible things going on by the IRA that are unbelievable, but probably true. Torture of the worst sort, indiscriminate bombings, especially against police, etc. The police always have to check under their cars before driving in case there's a bomb. Modern-day Muslim terrorists are not any worse than IRA terrorists, and the Muslim haters should look at these Christian terrorists before calling names.

In the middle of all the excitement, there is the usual groaner joke or two. One goes to a young girl he comes across:

“Why don’t blind people skydive?”
“Dunno, mister.”
“Because it scares the crap out of their dogs.”

( )