All that to say that I am currently leaning toward historical fiction - but did not categorize it as such when I started the Adrian McKinty novels set in Belfast, Ireland, during the “Troubles” in the 1980s. I traveled in Ireland and clearly remember the roadblocks and tensions.
Listening to the audio edition of the first book, The Cold, Cold Ground (2012), in which we meet Detective Inspector Sean Duffy, I was intrigued by the construct of a Catholic policeman in the hostile Royal Ulster Constabulary. (Narrator Gerard Doyle’s Irish accent helped set the stage.) Duffy’s complicated inner and outer life is often uncomfortable. The crimes he investigates are brutal but his quest to solve the cases and set the world back in balance is admirable.
This is a series where the setting and the culture are main characters in the story. In the second and third books, I Hear the Sirens in the Street (2013) and In the Morning I'll be Gone (2014), Duffy’s role in the force evolves as the political situation changes. Being a time I experienced and place I had visited, it was enlightening to return through fiction. I am looking forward to reading the second half of the series: Gun Street Girl (2015), Rain Dogs (2016), Police at the Station And They Don't Look Friendly (2017).
Liza Bernard is a voracious reader who enjoys both printed volumes and audiobooks. Formerly co-owner of the Norwich Bookstore, she maintains her connections with readers and writers as the Programming and Marketing Librarian at the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock, Vermont.