I was blown away by Adrian McKinty‘s 2020 book The Chain.

So — requested more by the same author from the library.

Next up was the first of his Sean Duffy series — Cold Cold Ground (2012).

If you are an Irish writer, the bar is set high. This is literature. And I can’t recall any better insight to The Troubles.

Spring 1981. Northern Ireland. Belfast on the verge of outright civil war.

The Thatcher government has flooded the area with soldiers, but nightly there are riots, bombings, and sectarian attacks.

In the midst of the chaos, Sean Duffy, a young, witty, Catholic detective in the almost entirely Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary, is trying to track down a serial killer who is targeting gay men.

As a Catholic policeman, Duffy is suspected by both sides and there are layers of complications. …

Fast-paced, evocative, and brutal, this book is a brilliant depiction of Belfast at the height of the Troubles and a cop caught in the cross fire.