![]() ![]() ![]() I read a lot of thrillers, and I enjoyed this more than most. It would be tempting to say that this is the best of the four books. Sean Duffy’s maverick character is clear from the outset. As in the later books, fiction and fact are intermingled such that Gerry Adams makes an appearance. The plot is more complex than the subsequent books and, the outcome is well concealed. Then there’s the interplay of the IRA, Sein Fein, and the UVF in this distorted reality. An extract of Mimi’s aria from La Boheme and other cryptic clues could suggest a homophobic serial killer. Is this a paramilitary execution of an informer? The post-mortem may point in another direction, as the hand is from someone else. A body is found with a hand sawn off and a hand placed on the chest. Helicopters everywhere: their spotlights finding one another like lovers in the Afterlife”. The scarlet whoosh of Molotovs intersecting with exacting surfaces. A distant yelling like that of men below decks in a torpedoed prison ship. ![]() Phosphorescence from the barrels of plastic bullet guns. In contrast to the constant rain and grim aspects of life, the first chapter opens poetically “Arcs of gasoline fire under the crescent moon. Not only that, he lives in a Protestant community with a local paramilitary as a nearby neighbour. Sean Duffy newly promoted to Detective Sergeant is a rarity, a Catholic policeman in the RUC. Belfast 1981: H Block and the dirty protest, Bobby Sands has died on hunger strike, riots and, the daily check of wheel arches for bombs. This is the first of four Sean Duffy books. ![]()
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