• The Cold, Cold Ground

  • Detective Sean Duffy, Book 1
  • By: Adrian McKinty
  • Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
  • Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (4,889 ratings)

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The Cold, Cold Ground  By  cover art

The Cold, Cold Ground

By: Adrian McKinty
Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
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Publisher's summary

Fast-paced, evocative, and brutal, The Cold Cold Ground is a brilliant depiction of Belfast at the height of the Troubles — and of a cop treading a thin, thin line —from The New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Adrian McKinty.

“McKinty is one of the most striking and most memorable crime voices to emerge on the scene in years.” —Tana French

Northern Ireland, spring 1981. Hunger strikes, riots, power cuts, a homophobic serial killer with a penchant for opera, and a young woman’s suicide that may yet turn out to be murder: on the surface, the events are unconnected, but then things—and people—aren’t always what they seem. Detective Sergeant Duffy is the man tasked with trying to get to the bottom of it all. It’s no easy job—especially when it turns out that one of the victims was involved in the IRA but was last seen discussing business with someone from the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force. Add to this the fact that, as a Catholic policeman, it doesn’t matter which side he’s on, because nobody trusts him, and Sergeant Duffy really is in a no-win situation.

©2012 Adrian McKinty (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“McKinty is a streetwise, energetic gunslinger of a writer, firing off volleys of sassy dialogue and explosive action that always delivers what it has promised.” ( Irish Times)
“What makes McKinty a cut above the rest is the quality of his prose. His driven, spat-out sentences are more accessible than James Ellroy's edge-of-reason staccato, and he can be lyric.” ( The Guardian)
“If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland, The Cold Cold Ground is what he would have written.” ( The Times, London)

What listeners say about The Cold, Cold Ground

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A Narrative Like None Other! LOVE It!

Where to begin? This author/narrator combo is awesome! The story is so intriguing that I could not bare to stop listening -- and that means kudos to the narrator whose voice became music to my ears. This is a great detective story, not to be missed. . . written on a wonderful background of history from Ireland's brutal past. Will look for more books by this author and this narrator!

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Cold Cold Disappointment

After reading Hidden River, I was excited and looking forward to more Adrian McKinty. I was so sure of that, I purchased it before I realized how completely mistaken I could be. It has taken me weeks of piecemeal listening to trudge my way along. I hoped to have the story break into an engaging story event. With six-plus hours of listening still left, I give up. I don't mind giving stories an effort and benefit of a doubt. What I cannot do is force myself time after time to endure a story that is not only droning, but drifts incessantly in a way I cannot follow. It does not build upon itself, nor does it establish a cohesive storyline. Perhaps it may, eventually, but it will happen without me. One day I may attempt another McKinty story, but not any day soon. I can only hope that Hidden River is not a one hit wonder. If I could return the book for a refund I would do it.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great Noir with Slight Letdown at End

Any additional comments?

Sean Duffy is a Catholic police detective in a place and at a time when the IRA sees him as a traitor and his Protestant colleagues see him as an odd duck. It’s 1981, Prince Charles is about to marry Diana, Pope John Paul II is about to get shot, and Bobby Sands and other IRA big-timers are on hunger strike. Northern Ireland is a powder keg, and then things really get crazy: someone starts killing homosexuals, and a young woman may or may not have hung herself. Oh, and Sean falls an attractive doctor.

In a lesser writer’s hands, all that could have been a mess. In McKinty’s, it’s riveting. I realize everything I’ve just described sounds like the obvious elements of a generic hardboiled novel, but McKinty makes it feel as if he’s invented the form.

For starters, the moment is perfect. Maybe it’s because I was a young high school student when these events took place – these were the news stories of my near adulthood – but the era seems rich with characters and conflicts that stayed with us. Northern Ireland was at the heart of a great storm, and McKinty excavates it with real care. We get the hit songs of the moment (from Dolly Parton to late-career Lou Reed), quick but accurate descriptions of the phones and record players, and glimpses of the cars everyone was driving. He brings back an era, one that wasn’t frightening in its everyday details, and makes it a locus for the conflicts that would drive the following decades.

More than that, though, we get everything with rare skill. McKinty dispenses backstory and fresh clue with a terrific rhythm. I never felt he was slipping in something important that I’d have to slap my forehead later for not noticing, nor did I feel he was telegraphing what was important. Instead, his story really feels like the story of a mystery slowly unraveling.

I do think the end falls short of the excellence of the first 90 percent of this, though. [SPOILER] Until the assassination attempt by the IRA team he’s provoked, he’s an ordinary thoughtful cop. When he takes out a half dozen armed men who have the drop on him, well, it feels contrived. And then, when he travels to Italy to kill a double agent, it seems like too much. I accept that he’s a man of deep integrity. I don’t accept that he’d take ‘justice’ into his own hands and kill a man who, despite awful crimes, has the chance to end “the Troubles” years earlier than otherwise.

I suspect that end is connected to my bugaboo about series. I’m not saying that Duffy should have been killed at the end, but I do think it would have been more true to the story to have him fail, to have him have to eat crow despite knowing who ultimately did it. To me, it feels like twisting the story to set up a sequel and probably more books with the same characters.

Barring the last chapter, though, I very much enjoyed this. I’ll keep an eye out for more McKinty – one more in the line of star Celtic noirists – and I’m happy to recommend him to others.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Lost potential

Classifying this as an historical mystery/thriller is accurate, but what it really is at heart is a police procedural that happens to be set in a specific historical place and time. That context does add most of the story’s unique interest, but unfortunately doesn’t overcome some weaknesses of pacing and character distractions. Sean Duffy, trying to establish himself as a lead detective on a sensational case, starts out being very precise about following the evidence (stick to the procedures). We go through long and detailed descriptions of the tedium of interviews, collecting evidence, waiting for lab results and returned phone calls. But as the evidence seems to hit some dead ends Duffy quickly devolves into guesswork and hunches, carelessly and emotionally making accusations, tipping his hand to those he wants to catch. Throw in some impulsive behaviors in his personal life that seem out of character, and this thriller has started to get a little loose. I really don’t mind flawed, even unlikable protagonists, but I would like to see them developed with some consistency within those flaws. Duffy just seemed all over the place.

I did stick with it, largely because of Gerard Doyle’s fine reading that kept me in the moment, but my eyes really started rolling when McKinty resorted to that laziest of all story wrap-ups: the monologue at gunpoint. I’m not really interested in continuing this series.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

A bit of a downer

For all the excellent reviews of this book and how highly rated it has been everywhere I looked, I have to say I was not so impressed. It is a little dark, a bit of a downer for me. The mayhem background of Ireland in the 80's was too much chaos, along with the character lack of self-awareness, sort of re-inventing itself with every twist and turn of the story. The narrator was good and fit well with my overall perception of the story gloominess. The wrap up and outcome of this novel left me skeptical about deciding if I wanted to read more in this trilogy from Adrian McKinty. I cannot say I will yet, maybe I will change my mind in the future.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Welcome to the real Ireland

Adrian McKinty writes a fascinating mystery in the true style of an Irish. The humor, the thinking patterns, and the story as a whole takes you where the Irish have lived for 200 plus years. If you're Irish you recognize it, if you're not you will learn some things that may changing your thinking. Gerard Doyle delivers it with the right emotion and attitude. You may not love this story, but you should want to read more McKinty after this one.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Good, but not gripping

The story was a good one, interesting enough. But it didn't keep me awake at night listening like others of this genre do. I always enjoy listening to mysteries and stories of different countries, particularly at war time, and had no trouble listening to the end. Just not a five star . . .

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No better combination

Any additional comments?

This is the 5th or 6th combination of Gerard Doyle and Adrian McKinty. There are some other author reader combinations that are as good, but none are better. Fine writing and an outstanding reading! If you have not tried one of these books, this is not a bad one to start with. McKinty's subject matter can sometimes be a little brutal but it is so, so worth it.

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Wonderful!

This book took me on a trip to Ireland - to places I would be too scared to visit in my "real life" and to meet people I would never meet. The reading was fantastic - and I would never have felt so at home in Ireland without the guiding voice of Gerard Doyle.

I enjoyed the excellent story, which ended as it should - though not as I expected, identified with certain qualities of the lead character who was suitably complex, and learned a little about the IRA and internal Irish politics, forensics and classical music.

Just downloaded another book by the duo McKinty /Doyle. Hope I won't be disappointed.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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slow start, good finish

It took me about an hour to get into the rhythm of the narrators voice. Once I adjusted I was hooked. I love crime novels and this is an interesting time in history for me. If you want to read more about the "irish troubles" during the 70's onward this is for you.

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