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Adrian McKinty was born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. He studied politics and philosophy at Oxford before moving to America in the early 1990s. Living first in Harlem, he found employment as a construction worker, barman, and bookstore clerk. In 2000 he moved to Denver to become a high school English teacher and it was there that he began writing fiction.
Young Michael, an illegal immigrant escaping the troubles in Northern Ireland is strong and fearless and clever, just the fellow to be tapped by Darkey, a crime boss, to join a gang of Irish thugs struggling against the rising Dominican powers in Harlem and the Bronx. The time is pre-Giuliani New York, when crack rules the city, squatters live furtively in ruined buildings, and hundreds are murdered each month.
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.
Alexander Lawson is a former detective for Northern Ireland's police force. After a disastrous six-month stint in the drug squad, he became addicted to heroin and resigned in disgrace. Now 24, sickly, and on the dole, Alex learns that his high-school love, Victoria Patawasti, has been murdered in America. Victoria's wealthy family sends Alex to Colorado to investigate the case, and he seizes the opportunity for a chance at redemption.
An illegal immigrant is killed in a hit-and-run on a frozen mountain road in the town of Fairview, Colorado. No one is prosecuted for his death and his case is quietly forgotten. Six months later another illegal makes a treacherous run across the border, barely escaping with her life. She finds work as a maid and, secretly, begins to investigate the death of her father. But she isn't a maid, and she's not Mexican.
Fegan has been a "hard man" - an IRA killer in Northern Ireland. Now that peace has come, he is being haunted day and night by 12 ghosts: a mother and infant, a schoolboy, a butcher, an RUC constable, and seven other of his innocent victims. In order to appease them, he's going to have to kill the men who gave him orders. As he's working his way down the list, he encounters a woman who may offer him redemption; she has borne a child to an RUC officer and is an outsider too.
Adrian McKinty was born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. He studied politics and philosophy at Oxford before moving to America in the early 1990s. Living first in Harlem, he found employment as a construction worker, barman, and bookstore clerk. In 2000 he moved to Denver to become a high school English teacher and it was there that he began writing fiction.
Young Michael, an illegal immigrant escaping the troubles in Northern Ireland is strong and fearless and clever, just the fellow to be tapped by Darkey, a crime boss, to join a gang of Irish thugs struggling against the rising Dominican powers in Harlem and the Bronx. The time is pre-Giuliani New York, when crack rules the city, squatters live furtively in ruined buildings, and hundreds are murdered each month.
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.
Alexander Lawson is a former detective for Northern Ireland's police force. After a disastrous six-month stint in the drug squad, he became addicted to heroin and resigned in disgrace. Now 24, sickly, and on the dole, Alex learns that his high-school love, Victoria Patawasti, has been murdered in America. Victoria's wealthy family sends Alex to Colorado to investigate the case, and he seizes the opportunity for a chance at redemption.
An illegal immigrant is killed in a hit-and-run on a frozen mountain road in the town of Fairview, Colorado. No one is prosecuted for his death and his case is quietly forgotten. Six months later another illegal makes a treacherous run across the border, barely escaping with her life. She finds work as a maid and, secretly, begins to investigate the death of her father. But she isn't a maid, and she's not Mexican.
Fegan has been a "hard man" - an IRA killer in Northern Ireland. Now that peace has come, he is being haunted day and night by 12 ghosts: a mother and infant, a schoolboy, a butcher, an RUC constable, and seven other of his innocent victims. In order to appease them, he's going to have to kill the men who gave him orders. As he's working his way down the list, he encounters a woman who may offer him redemption; she has borne a child to an RUC officer and is an outsider too.
Colonial New Guinea, 1906: A small group of mostly German nudists lives an extreme back-to-nature existence on the remote island of Kabakon. Eating only coconuts and bananas, they purport to worship the sun. One of their members, Max Lutzow, has recently died, allegedly from malaria. But an autopsy on his body in the nearby capital of Herbertshöhe raises suspicions about foul play.
When Jamie’s mother inherits a small island and moves her little family from Harlem to Ireland, her troubled son sees a chance to start over, far away from the bullies and the pitying stares. Cancer has left Jamie without an arm or the will to speak. But Muck Island is no sanctuary, and it offers more than solitude and sea views. Jamie learns that he is heir to an ancient title—Laird of Muck, Guardian of the Passage—and certain otherworldly responsibilities.
Welcome to the Misfit Mob... It's where Police Scotland dumps the officers it can't get rid of but wants to: the outcasts, the troublemakers, the compromised. Officers like DC Callum MacGregor, lumbered with all the boring go-nowhere cases. So when an ancient mummy turns up at the Oldcastle tip, it's his job to find out which museum it's been stolen from. But then Callum uncovers links between his ancient corpse and three missing young men, and life starts to get a lot more interesting.
It's DS Logan McRae's first day back on the job after a year off on the sick, and it couldn't get much worse. Three-year-old David Reid's body is discovered in a ditch: strangled, mutilated and a long time dead. And he's only the first. There's a serial killer stalking the Granite City, and the local media are baying for blood. Soon the dead are piling up in the morgue almost as fast as the snow on the streets, and Logan knows time is running out. More children are going missing. More are going to die.
From the best-selling author of Cry Baby, the beginning of a brilliant and gripping police procedural series set in Liverpool, perfect for fans of Peter James and Mark Billingham. A woman at home in Liverpool is disturbed by a persistent tapping at her back door. She's disturbed to discover the culprit is a raven and tries to shoo it away. Which is when the killer strikes. DS Nathan Cody, still bearing the scars of an undercover mission that went horrifyingly wrong, is put on the case.
When a young boy discovers the body of a woman beneath a thick sheet of ice in a South London park, Detective Erika Foster is called in to lead the murder investigation. The victim, a beautiful young socialite, appeared to have the perfect life. Yet when Erika begins to dig deeper, she starts to connect the dots between the murder and the killings of three prostitutes, all found strangled, hands bound, and dumped in water around London.
Belfast befindet sich im Ausnahmezustand. Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy ist neu in der Stadt, und gleich bei seinem ersten Fall - der Suche nach einem Serienkiller - muss er sich ins Zentrum des Terrors begeben. Sean Duffy ist wahrscheinlich der einzige katholische Bulle in ganz Nordirland, denn es ist 1981, und "katholisch sein" steht vor allem für eines: IRA. Die Paramilitärs haben der Polizei den Krieg erklärt.
DI Nikki Galena: A police detective with nothing left to lose, she's seen a girl die in her arms, and her daughter will never leave the hospital again. She's gotten tough on the criminals she believes did this to her. Too tough. And now she's been given one final warning: make it work with her new sergeant, DS Joseph Easter, or she's out.
All Denny Malone wants is to be a good cop. He is the "King of Manhattan North", a highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant and the real leader of "Da Force". Malone and his crew are the smartest, the toughest, the quickest, the bravest, and the baddest - an elite special unit given carte blanche to fight gangs, drugs, and guns. Every day and every night for the 18 years he's spent on the job, Malone has served on the front lines, witnessing the hurt, the dead, the victims, the perps.
For LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch - hero, maverick, nighthawk - the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal. The dead man, Billy Meadows, was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who fought side by side with him in a nightmare underground war that brought them to the depths of hell.
My favorite line in my favorite song about Dallas goes like this: Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes / A steel and concrete soul in a warm heart and love disguise... The narrator of Jimmie Dale Gilmore's perfect tune Dallas" is coming to town as a broke dreamer with the bright lights of the big city on his mind. He's just seen the Dallas cityscape through the window of his seat on a DC-9 at night. Is he just beginning his quest?
A heart-stopping crime thriller from the author of three consecutive No. 1 bestsellers, including Birthdays for the Dead and the DI Logan McRae series. He's back... Eight years ago, ‘The Inside Man' murdered four women and left three more in critical condition - all of them with their stomachs slit open and a plastic doll stitched inside. And then the killer just … disappeared. Ash Henderson was a Detective Inspector on the initial investigation, but a lot can change in eight years.
Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award
Rain Dogs, a stunning installment in the Sean Duffy thriller series, following the Edgar Award-nominated Gun Street Girl, is "another standout in a superior series" (Booklist).
It's just the same things over and again for Sean Duffy: riot duty, heartbreak, cases he can solve but never get to court. But what detective gets two locked-room mysteries in one career?
When journalist Lily Bigelow is found dead in the courtyard of Carrickfergus castle, it looks like a suicide. Yet there are a few things that bother Duffy just enough to keep the case file open, which is how he finds out that Bigelow was working on a devastating investigation of corruption and abuse at the highest levels of power in the UK and beyond. And so Duffy has two impossible problems on his desk: Who killed Lily Bigelow? And what were they trying to hide?
Detective Sean Duffy novels are good cop stuff set in an excellent backdrop ("The Troubles" in Ireland). Rain Dogs delivers all the gritty and humorous material we have come to expect from Adrian McKinty's erudite, but seemingly feckless (he's not…it's a ruse), Detective Inspector Duffy. However, if you are this far along in the series you don't need a lecture on that…
What I want my fellow listeners to grock is that Gerard Doyle, our reader, is one of the top five narrators in the world…unbelievably enjoyable to hear in your earbuds and totally believable as he shifts characters (male or female). HIs Irish brogue, thick or thin, is classic BBC teletheater.
This series is great, although when you begin your search click on the narrator's name first to see what he has to offer. Amazing stuff!
14 of 14 people found this review helpful
Adrian McKinty is one of the best story tellers of our time. In Rain Dogs he is at his very best. Gerard iDoyle is one of the best narrators. In Rain Dogs he is at his very best.
This Detective Sean Duffy police procedural, Book 5 in the series, is set in 1987 during turbulent times in Northern Ireland. Among other things the story is about the apparent death by suicide of a journalist at a castle. If it is murder then there appears to be only on possible culprit. Duffy sets out to solve the mystery.
This novel is as much about Sean Duffy's personal life as about the murder case. In telling this compelling story McKinty almost magically weaves the case and the personal together to where they are one.
I believed that this series would end with five books. A twist at the end casts doubt on my assumption.
Rain Dogs has mystery but little action or suspense. It is a great story well told.
I VERY HIGHLY RECOMMEND Rain Dogs not just to mystery/thriller enthusiasts but to all who like a good story.
21 of 22 people found this review helpful
I'm never disappointed with Sean Duffy. He's an ordinary cop, just trying to be diligent in his job, always seemingly to lose at love and even when his cases are solved, they seem to have a twist adding to the realism of the story. Duffy's life is lackluster, plodding away day to day, but he's dedicated to the marrow. The narration is perfect for the character putting you in the heart of Ireland.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful
The entire series has been a good one and this one does not disappoint. It starts a little slow but the story is another interesting and ingenious mystery with witty dialogue along the way.
Narration from Doyle is terrific as usual. Recommended along with the series.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
Would you listen to Rain Dogs again? Why?
Yes, it has all the check marks of a great story
What was one of the most memorable moments of Rain Dogs?
I loved the opening chapter in Belfast with the greatest man on earth
Which character – as performed by Gerard Doyle – was your favorite?
Sean is his best but Mr Doyle does a great job on all the characters in the story Keep up the good work
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Yes, two times both with pride the beginning and at the end
Any additional comments?
Adrian McKinty is a masterful story teller who makes you feel the pain and pride of his characters, Look forward to his next works Soon I hope
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes, because it everything I look for when listening to an audiobook.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Doyle. He used to be a character I loved but did not like. This time out I like and love him, he has matured nicely over the past seven years in novel time.
What does Gerard Doyle bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
When I read a book I give each character a voice that used to sound a lot like mine. Now it sounds like a combination of many audio actors I've heard. Doyle beats them all.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I did not weep in this one but laughed throughout. There is a lot more to the book than laughing but there are a lot of chuckles in this one.
Any additional comments?
I loved this book. Not being a writer I want to end the review there but I suppose those reading this want more. I know I would.
First of all this book is a deviation from previous books in the series. Those other books were police procedures that take place during the Troubles but our hero while trying to solve a case our hero was one player among many each with their own conflicting interests in how Duffy’s case turned out with global consequences. Duffy had to deal with America, England, his supervisors, paramilitaries, being a minority cop in a secretarial low level civil war, a messy love life, torn between doing the right thing for the victim and the right thing for his career ah he solve the case.
This novel by contrast is a much more intimate experience. It’s Duffy, Lawson, Crabby against the big mystery. As readers we are given every clue up front, there is no 11th hour shenanigans where we get new information that was never disclosed. If you are up to the challenge you can figure out why and how before Duffy. I couldn’t but if you are into that kind of thing I’m sure it adds an extra layer of enjoyment to an already enjoyable experience.
This is a mystery that takes place in the real world with real characters. Duffy isn’t omniscient or always right you see him go down blind allies, make wrong accusations, miss stuff. Leads and breaks are to come from other characters as much as they are from Duffy himself and mystery concludes the way it would in real life. No cliché shortcuts everything is earned and original this isn’t the same novel in a series that written over and over dispensed and consume like junk food.
Finally what make this novel so good are the characters. Through the characters we experience humor, action, suspense, drama, intrigue, love, loss, betrayal, heartbreak a roller coaster of emotions peppered throughout the book against the backdrop of characters try to solve and prevent a mystery from being solved. Without the characters it would be a very boring police procedure but with characters it’s a larger than life adventure that we get to go along inside Duffy’s head experiencing everything as he experiences it.
On to the narrator Doyle. If you close your eyes you can pretend you have half dozen A list actors from both sexes doing a passion project. He’s able to bring every accent for male and female to life and have it be dead on. Early on, I mean in the first five minutes he does a Muhammad Ali impersonation that I thought was awful, but went on YouTube to see how the champ sounded in 1987 and it was really good indeed. This coming from a voice actor that descended from white English and Irish parents.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
I almost swore off of Adrian McKinty after listening to his, "The River" last month. I found it to be an AWFUL self-indulgent drug addled morass! Odd since I'd given him about 135 stars for the last ten of his novels I've heard. I'd probably have given "Rain Dogs" 15 stars as well if it weren't for the acrid debris still in my ears from "The River". But here Shawn Duffy's back. I recall when this series was supposed to be a triad - but it's obviously been nurtured into a larger crop by the money fans have poured into Duffy's engaging maturation. And the ending's a clear signal to Duffy's future growth.
If you've caught up with this series, then yeah, get "Rain Dogs", if not... start from the beginning. Since it's set in 80s Northern Ireland - each of these books is as fresh as the day they were first read by Gerard Doyle. And Doyle, once again, is Shawn Duffy as he moves through the rain, bombs, and political murk of British secrets.
Oh... the plot here's so classic that McKinty spends a LOT of time actually apologizing for its familiarity... Charmingly I think, but I won't be surprised when I read other reviewers who find it a LOT derivative of earlier Duffy novels.
I'll buy the next Shawn Duffy tale, now that McKinley's almost entirely flushed "The River" from my memory.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful
Where does Rain Dogs rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
One of the best.
Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?
Yes. The whodunnit seemed obvious, at first, and then not. The howdunnit came in and out of focus. The whydunnit wasn't resolved until the end.
What does Gerard Doyle bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
There are nuances to the prose that cannot be appreciated easily by someone who isn't from Ireland. Gerard Doyle's interpretation clarifies and deepens the story.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
Rain, whiskey, murder.
Any additional comments?
Do I really have to wait 51 1/2 weeks for another McKinty?
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
Would you listen to Rain Dogs again? Why?
In case I missed something which I doubt I did
Who was your favorite character and why?
Sean Duffy of course. Why? Because he sounds like someone I'd want to be friends with
What does Gerard Doyle bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The Irish accent plus other character nuances make the people come alive
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
As always I can't stop listening when I should
Any additional comments?
Pure escapism. I live the situations
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
The Sean Duffy series starts off exciting and then continues to get better and better with each book. The stories are so clever and intriguing, but Sean Duffy is as well drawn as any series protagonist. You could read this book without starting at the beginning, but it is so enjoyable watching how the characters progress through the 4 books in the series. I am hoping more will be coming soon. I know I can't wait.
Special mention goes to Gerard Doyle as narrator. He beautiful Irish brogue and excellent acting make for a rare listening experience. He was the perfect choice as narrator of this series.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
Excellent story with lots of twists and turns. Interesting use of Jimmy Saville and other scandals intertwined with Sean Duffy to give an added edge and suspension of disbelief underlaid with gallows humour .
Inspector Sean Duffy is a relentless investigator, who's right into his music and quite fond of the drink and the cigarettes.
He's ably backed by The Crabman and Young Lawson in a captivating tale of intrigue which unfolds at a gentle but persistent pace.
There are none of the daft chase / fight scenes which blight other detective stories, and McKinty's turn of phrase is beguiling.
Gerard Doyle's narration is sublime. Terrific stuff.
Very contemporaneous despite the setting. Gripping and lively. Good read and well delivered (some accents apart!)
I really enjoy the Sean Duffy books and am half way through this one, but the narrators attempts at regional accents are dreadful. The Liverpudlian and the Geordie one are so awful, to the point where I was detracted from listening to the content. A real shame.
Would you listen to Rain Dogs again? Why?
Have already listened to it twice. Will listen again later.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Sean,Lawson, the Crab man....how can you chose??
Have you listened to any of Gerard Doyle’s other performances? How does this one compare?
Brilliant as usual. He is so good and adds soooo much to the enjoyment of listening to this novel.
Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Is so many dry, funny moments. Sean is so funny and the Crab man is such a compliment to him.
Any additional comments?
Im sure there will be more Duffy novels..... I hope so at least.
Great, as usual, as expected. I Love the characters and the wit. I wish he would write more Duffy novels.
Would you listen to Rain Dogs again? Why?
I'm not sure. It's a mystery, so once you know how it ends, you can't unknow it and listen in mystery again. But it's a good story about a fascinating time in history, so maybe.
What did you like best about this story?
There's a realism that just fascinates me. Set in the time of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland in the 80s, I was too young to really understand what was happening a the time, and I think that unless you lived there and through it, you couldn't really know. This book felt so gritty. I loved it
Have you listened to any of Gerard Doyle’s other performances? How does this one compare?
I've listened to all the other books in this series, and it felt very consistent
Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
there are always the one-liners that make me bark out a laugh.
Well, you know, just another wonderful tale from the pen of Adrian McKinty.
This one is slightly different, is Sean mellowing and maturing?
I must add that I think it is best to read this series from the beginning or you will miss out on so much.
Narrator Gerard Doyle pulls off another spectacular job. He is a craftsman. I have praised him so many times that I have run out of wonderful things to say
0 of 1 people found this review helpful