Author profile: Adrian McKinty

"I Hear the Sirens in the Street blew my bloody doors off!"
- Ian Rankin

Adrian McKinty has written more than 16 books, from crime and mystery novels to YA fiction. He also co-edited Belfast Noir (2014) with Stuart Neville.

McKinty's first crime novel, Dead I Well May Be (2003), the first in the Michael Forsythe trilogy, was shortlisted for the 2004 Steel Dagger Award.

The award-winning DI Sean Duffy series began with The Cold Cold Ground (2012) and is now on its fourth novel, Gun Street Girl (2015). It features a Catholic cop in a predominantly Protestant RUC in Northern Ireland during the 1980s.

McKinty grew up in Carrickfergus in County Antrim. He studied law at Warwick University and politics and philosophy at Oxford.

After college he worked in New York City "at various odd jobs with varying degrees of legality" until 2001 when he moved to Denver, Colorado to teach English. In 2008 he emigrated again, this time to Melbourne in Australia with his wife and children.

"McKinty's descriptions of Belfast won't win him any friends in the Northern tourist industry. But Joyceans will be entertained spotting the many nods to Ulysses."  - Eugene McEldowney

Official author website: Adrianmckinty.com

The author on Twitter: @adrianmckinty

See also: the author's blog and a half-hour interview (audio only) from May 2014 about the Duffy series.

BOTM: 'Gun Street Girl' by Adrian McKinty

Our June "Book of the Month": Gun Street Girl (2015).

The author: Adrian McKinty.

Adrian McKinty on Duffy and locked room mysteries

A recent video interview with Adrian McKinty, shot in a 1980s BMW while driving around Berlin.

Excerpt: Adrian McKinty reads 'Rain Dogs'

Adrian McKinty reading the opening from the fifth and best book in his "Sean Duffy" series about a Catholic RUC officer in Northern Ireland in the 1980s.

• Read the full first chapter of Rain Dogs on Issuu.

Best Irish crime fiction of 2015

2015 was a bumper year for Irish crime fiction. Among major releases were novels by - to name just ten - Alex Barclay, Louise Phillips, John Connolly, Ava McCarthy, Adrian McKinty, Benjamin Black, Sinéad Crowley, Mark O'Sullivan, Karen Perry and Anthony J Quinn.

There were also some dazzling debuts in the crime fiction department, such as novels by Steve Cavanagh, Jax Miller, Alan Walsh, Michael O'Higgins, Frankie Gaffney, Jo Spain and Kelly Creighton.

And it was a good year too for crime fiction on the small and big screen.

Here are some of our personal choices from the past year's Irish crime fiction novels, movies, TV shows and audio books...

Adrian McKinty pens fifth Sean Duffy novel

Adrian McKinty is to publish a fifth book in the award-winning Sean Duffy series, about a Catholic RUC detective inspector in 1980s Northern Ireland.

Latest Adrian McKinty: Gun Street Girl

Gun Street Girl is the fourth in the Sean Duffy series by acclaimed crime writer Adrian McKinty. When Duffy grudgingly takes on a double murder case, he finds himself on the trail of a conspiracy which could cost him everything.

Belfast, 1985. Gunrunners on the borders, riots in the cities, The Power of Love on the radio. And somehow, in the middle, Detective Inspector Sean Duffy is hanging on, a Catholic policeman in the hostile Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Duffy is initially left cold by the murder of a wealthy couple, shot dead while watching TV. And when their troubled son commits suicide, leaving a note that appears to take responsibility for the deaths, it seems the case is closed.

But something doesn’t add up, and people keep dying. Soon Duffy is on the trail of a mystery that will pit him against shadowy US intelligence forces, and take him into the white-hot heart of the biggest political scandal of the decade.

Available from Amazon UK from: 8 January 2015

Gerard Doyle in Audies for McKinty novel

Irish actor Gerard Doyle's reading of In the Morning I'll Be Gone has been shortlisted for the prestigious Audies. It's the third in Adrian McKinty's series featuring troubled RUC man Sean Duffy in 1980s Northern Ireland.

Our crime fiction books and shows of 2016

2016 was another bumper year for Irish crime fiction, from a wide range of newcomers to the latest offerings by the likes of Tana French and Adrian McKinty. It also saw the publication of Trouble Is Our Business, a terrific anthology of short stories edited by Declan Burke. Here are our picks of the year.

Sixth 'Sean Duffy' book in the pipeline

Rain Dogs, the fifth book in Adrian McKinty's best-selling Sean Duffy series, is due in the shops on 21 January 2016. Serpent's Tail have already signed him up for a sixth book about the Catholic RUC officer, to be published in a year's time.

It currently has the working title Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly (from a Tom Waits song), and brings events in the Northern Ireland Troubles up to 1988...

Free new Sean Duffy story

Adrian McKinty has written a new Sean Duffy short story for Radio Silence magazine.

The 2,800-word standalone story, "Shadowboxing" takes place on an afternoon in 1987, around the same time as the epilogue of McKinty's latest novel Gun Street Girl. Duffy is on crowd control at a public event in Belfast featuring boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

Story available free online here.

New crime anthology 'Trouble Is Our Business'

Trouble Is Our Business, a new anthology of short stories by leading Irish crime writers, will be published by New Island Books this September.

Irish authors make CWA Daggers longlists

There is very strong Irish interest in the longlists for this year's Crime Writers’ Association Daggers, Jake Harrington reports.

Irish Noir at Theakston

This year's Theakston Festival in Harrogate features an "Irish Noir" session on Friday 17 July with Steve Cavanagh, Brian McGilloway, Adrian McKinty, Eoin McNamee and Stuart Neville.

Established in 2003, Theakstons claims to be the largest crime fiction festival in the world. This year it is programmed by crime writer Ann Cleeves. Other guest authors include Arnaldur Indridason, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Lee Child, MC Beaton and Sara Paretsky.

Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Festival
16-19 July 2015
Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, England
Twitter: @TheakstonsCrime

Adrian McKinty on Sean Duffy book #4

Author profile: Stuart Neville

"The Twelve is a revenge tragedy in the Elizabethan mode, scripted by Quentin Tarantino and produced by the makers of The Bourne Identity ... But it possesses a profound and wider significance... The Twelve is an important part of [Northern Ireland's] purging." - The Irish Times

Stuart Neville is a leading crime fiction writer from Northern Ireland known in particular for his award-winning debut novel The Twelve (2009, known in the US as The Ghosts of Belfast).

Belfast, 2007, two months after the elections in which the North's  voters finally chose a government of their own. Ex-IRA hitman and "Republican hero" Gerry Fegan, his finances covered by a Sinn Féin-paid salary for a nonexistent community job, embarks on a killing spree of his former bosses, the IRA old guard, as a form of absolution.

Neville published three critically acclaimed sequels, Collusion (2010), Stolen Souls (2013) and The Final Silence (2014).

His novel Ratlines (2013), about Nazis harboured by the Irish state following WWII, is currently in development for television.

“You can't choose where you belong, and where you don't. But what if the place you don't belong is the only place you have left?”- Stuart Neville, The Twelve

He also co-edited Belfast Noir (2014) with Adrian McKinty. His new series based on DCI Serena Flanagan kicks off with Those We Left Behind (publication date 26 June 2015):

Serena Flanagan (then an ambitious Detective Sergeant) takes days to earn the trust of 12-year-old Ciaran Devine, who confesses to murdering his foster father. 

Seven years later Flanagan is a DCI and Ciaran is about to re-enter society. But his probation officer Paula suspects there's more to the case. Ciaran's confession saved his brother Thomas from a far lengthier sentence, and Paula can see the unnatural hold Thomas still has over his younger brother. 

When she brings her fears to DCI Flanagan, years of lies begin to unravel.

Before becoming a best-selling author, Neville was a musician, teacher, salesman, film extra, baker "and a hand double for a well known Irish comedian". He has also been known to play guitar (and harmonica) with singer-songwriter Nina Armstrong over the years.

Official author website: Stuartneville.com

Author on Twitter: @stuartneville