Always check under the car before driving away

“Police at the Station and They Don’t Look Friendly” by Adrian McKinty (Seventh Street Books, 319 pages, $15.95)

Adrian McKinty grew up in Northern Ireland during the period known there as “The Troubles.” Sectarian violence became commonplace when the Irish Republican Army was fighting its guerilla war against the British government.

McKinty had always wanted to write a mystery series set during those difficult, violent times. When he pitched the idea to publishers, they informed him that nobody wanted to read about or remember those terrible days.

McKinty persisted. He found a publisher who was willing to do it. As I mentioned in a previous column, McKinty's last book, "Rain Dogs," is currently being considered for a prestigious Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The so-called experts are proved wrong again. This series is poised to explode in readership.

His protagonist in these novels is Detective Sean Duffy of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Duffy investigates homicides — he’s a bit of an oddball on the force. Most of his fellow officers are Protestants. Duffy’s a Catholic.

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Devotees of this genre form literary attachments to characters who display certain telltale behaviors. James Lee Burke’s Louisiana lawman Dave Robicheaux is a recovering alcoholic. In almost every book Dave has a moment in which he will guiltily visualize a serving of liquor. We can expect Philip Kerr’s Berlin detective Bernie Gunther to have an appraising eye for any comely woman he might encounter.

Readers can count on Sean Duffy to do a few peculiar things. Some fictional cops operate along the margins in the gray areas between enforcing the law or breaking it. He's one of those. Sean loves to acquire contraband substances that have been locked away inside the police evidence room. Then there are the bombs. Every time Detective Duffy gets ready to drive away in his car he checks beneath it to make sure that the IRA hasn't attached potentially lethal mercury tilt bombs to the undercarriage.

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The author told me why Sean always checks for bombs. When McKinty was a lad he got rides to school in a car driven by the father of one of his friends. This man would always look beneath the car for bombs. One day McKinty realized the fellow had forgotten to inspect it before they drove off. He was incredibly nervous as they drove away, just waiting for the explosion. His once deeply felt paranoia reads very real on these pages.

The latest offering in the series is "Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly." Sean has been called to investigate a murder at a housing project in Belfast. The year is 1988 and the victim had been shot with a crossbow.

Those fictional cops often have complicated personal lives. In this one Duffy is having a rocky time with his girlfriend. She wants them to leave their house in the city. Duffy has an attachment to that old house. So does the author. As a youth McKinty lived at the same address where his fictional detective now resides. This is the best book in the series so far. It doesn’t look like Sean will survive this one. Read it.

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