I Hear the Sirens in the Street: A Detective Sean Duffy Novel (The Troubles Trilogy, Book Two)

Set in 1982, McKinty’s uneven second outing for Belfast Det. Sgt. Sean Duffy shifts focus away from the IRA enforcers of the first installment, 2012’s The Cold Cold Ground, toward Northern Ireland’s Anglo-Protestant elite. While war rages in the Falklands, the brash, intelligent Duffy chases down cold leads after Irish-American tourist Bill O’Rourke turns up dismembered in a suitcase that just happened to belong to a Loyalist farmer, Martin McAlpine, a member of the landed gentry assassinated by the IRA. The only progress he makes is with Martin’s beautiful young widow, Emma, while the only hope for the depressed country as a whole may rest with real-life high-flying American automaker John DeLorean. Punchy, pop culture–tinged prose and a charismatic hero help offset Duffy’s slowly developing case, which fails to pick up any real momentum. Agent: Bob Mecoy, Creative Book Services. (May)