Falling Glass

By: Adrian McKinty

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

In this noir thriller by a New York Times best-selling and Edgar award-winning author, a retired IRA fixer takes a lucrative last job finding the ex-wife and daughters of a wealthy airline owner.

Richard Coulter is a man who has everything. His beautiful new wife is pregnant, his upstart airline is undercutting the competition and moving from strength to strength, his diversification into the casino business in Macau has been successful, and his fabulous Art Deco house on an Irish cliff top has just been featured in Architectural Digest.

But then, for some reason, his ex-wife Rachel doesn’t keep her side of the custody agreement and vanishes off the face of the earth with Richard’s two daughters. Richard hires Killian, a formidable ex-enforcer for the IRA, to track her down before Rachel, a recovering drug addict, harms herself or the girls.

As Killian follows Rachel’s trail, he begins to see that there is a lot more to this case than first meets the eye and that a 30-year-old secret is going to put all of them in terrible danger.

McKinty is at his continent-hopping, well-paced, evocative best in this thriller, moving between his native Ireland and distant cities within a skin-of-his-teeth timeframe.

©2011 Adrian McKinty (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Hold on to your seat!!!

Adrian McKinty is a darn good storyteller. He’s the real thing and keeps getting better and better.

Don’t let this book fool you. Yes, it’s an action-packed thriller, but it’s much more than that. The story is brutal but beautifully, hauntingly, and lyrically written. Imagine a cross pollination of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Chuck Palahniuk. Or James Joyce and Quentin Tarantino. Add laugh out loud passages – the humor is priceless – and little bits and pieces information of all kinds, and you have all the ingredients for a story that’s absolutely impossible to put down.

“Hidden River” is still my favorite Adrian McKinty novel – your first is often your most memorable – but “Falling Glass” is close (the Dead trilogy is also close… OK, it’s hard to pick a favorite).

The hero of “Falling Glass” is a good but flawed Irish boy who just wants to recover losses from the bad economy and go back to studying architecture. Killian’s out of “the business” but decides to go back one last time to pull himself out of debt. Thus the ride begins, the roller coaster cranking on the upswing, quickly reaching the crest and before you know it, you’re hanging onto your seat and your hair is standing on end.

I listen for the narrator

I have listened to several Adrian McKinty books and enjoy them all. The stories are typical police novels set in Northern Ireland. Most are part of a series, but this one stands alone. The main character is a "tinker" which I had never heard of before. It is a traveling community in Ireland who travel the country living in caravans (trailers). The main character leaves this life to become a private detective but he maintains the skills he learned as a Tinker including stealing cars, breaking into homes and shooting guns. THe last is not his favorite" activity, but will kill when the circumstances require it. At the end of the book he has to do plenty of that to protect a woman and her child.

What makes these books great for audio is the narrator. With a real Irish brogue, you feel transported to Ireland. He can do both mens and women's voices quite well. These books I am not sure I would read, but love the audio versions.

Adrian McKinty is a splendid writer!

I came across this writer and this series purely by accident whle browsing and reading reviews, and I wasnt so sure that it was my cup of tea. But the excellent narration by Gerard Doyle and the plain spoken prose of Mckinty drew me in to the lives of the characters. Indeed, Mckinty tells some pretty gritty stories, and the Michael Forsythe character is by turns smart, reckless, and just plain lucky that he makes it through so many near death experiences...it can become unbelievable that this guy continues to ge tout of jams the way he does.... but then Mckinty's descriptive passages take my breath away and set a scene so swell; they are not fancy or over the top, but vivid in a way that offsets the harsh reality of the lives he is tracking. There is also an intelligence and insight here that is rather rare.
I consider McKinty to be among one of the great writers...and I have read the canon and then some, including much contemporary lit....this is above and beyond, and I strongly suggest it to anyone (adult...there are some pretty serious themes and also some pretty strong violent images)

I've been thrilled to find that there are more books in this series and some other books that he has written (though I am unsure about the series for the younger set, I will listen to it) and I love this narrator to the point that I have searched out other books that he has narrated.

Adrian McKinty always tells a great story.

The narrator is the same as the last 6 McKinty books I've read and he's excellent. The writer and narrator make a perfect team. This one threw me a little because I'm still unsure of the ending. I hope the writer will write another Killian book so I know for sure.

Good Mystery

I enjoy McKinty's writing this did get a little dark at times but a great read. A good mystery with some unexpected plots and outcomes.

Awesome Listen !

Did not want it to end. Perfect story and read. Hope there's a sequel.

compelling to the end...but hanging

Which character – as performed by Gerard Doyle – was your favorite?

Killien - not sure how to spell his name.

Any additional comments?

I loved the Irish accent. You could almost picture the beautiful Irish countryside.

Pavee

I learned something new from this boo, about the Irish Travelers, the Pavee. never had heard of them before. Adrian McKinty has a nice writing style, he brings the Irish characters to life and I feel like he gives me a good feeling for what life in Northern Ireland must be like even though these are crime novels. This story wasn't the greatest story ever written but it was entertaining, kept my interest and I moved through it fairly quickly. I bought this on a 2 for 1 audible book sale. I felt like the purchase was worth it.

Dark mystery with superb characters

As long as you're not too squeamish about violence, this thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat for the whole ride. The characters are rich and human, and there's hidden depth to each one. In addition, Doyle's performance really makes you feel like you are there. Fantastic!

Words win in this stunner

Gerard Doyle delivers a first class performance of a first class story. Adrian McKinty reaches into the dust of creation, shaping with poetic abandon themes of life and death. The Falling in the title drags the ugly perpetrators down from the Glass houses they have inhabited for forty years. And the ending of this story is like a man-comet wheeling across the stage of the heavens performing perhaps its final show. I was totally captivated by the language and the reading.