McKinty wrote another. When he was writing his third he decided to kill Duffy. That story was also set during “The Troubles” and in that supposedly final book of the trilogy McKinty envisioned Duffy saving British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from a bomb that was planted by terrorists in Brighton, England.
He had Sean Duffy dying in a heroic, explosive manner, while saving the life of a woman who was reviled by many of Duffy’s fellow Catholics back in Northern Ireland. He presented the manuscript to his editors. They read it, and were appalled. What? How could he kill off his main character in a series that has so much potential?
They talked McKinty out of it. He rewrote the ending. Duffy survived. The eighth book in the series, “Hang on St. Christopher,” just came out and this reviewer thinks it is the best one yet. We have reached the final days of that period, secret peace talks are underway. Duffy is working a desk job, looking forward to retiring soon.
He’s so close to retiring he has moved his family to Scotland already and commutes by ferry. The usual tension of those times still prevails, whenever Duffy is about to get into his car he will inspect the undercarriage first to ascertain that the IRA hasn’t attached a bomb there.
McKinty moderates the prevalent tension by having Duffy be witty, humorous, with lovely taste in music. He starts the book by breaking all of the legendary Elmore Leonard’s rules for opening crime novels. He’s clearly having fun with this one so we do, too.
A man is found murdered. Duffy would not be investigating more murders but the cop who should be doing it is on vacation. Suddenly Duffy and his dour but delightful sidekick Crabby are on another case. The dead man presents our mystery. Who was he? By the time this one is ending Duffy is in America tracking his quarry.
Duffy thinks he’s so clever. It turns out the car he rents is totally conspicuous. He was not incognito at all-this creates hilarious, potentially deadly consequences. Will this be the last of Sean Duffy? Has McKinty learned a lesson about killing him off? Let’s pray he knows better this time. The Sean Duffy series is simply so good.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
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