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Shop nowThe Cold Cold Ground
The Sean Duffy Series: Book #1
Narrator
Gerard Doyle
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Length
10 hours 3 minutes
Language
English
Fast-paced, evocative, and brutal, The Cold Cold Ground is a brilliant depiction of Belfast at the height of the Troubles—and of a cop treading a thin, thin line—from the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author Adrian McKinty.
“McKinty is one of the most striking and most memorable crime voices to emerge on the scene in years.” —Tana French
Northern Ireland, spring 1981. Hunger strikes, riots, power cuts, a homophobic serial killer with a penchant for opera, and a young woman’s suicide that may yet turn out to be murder: on the surface, the events are unconnected, but then things—and people—aren’t always what they seem. Detective Sergeant Duffy is the man tasked with trying to get to the bottom of it all. It’s no easy job—especially when it turns out that one of the victims was involved in the IRA but was last seen discussing business with someone from the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force. Add to this the fact that, as a Catholic policeman, it doesn’t matter which side he’s on, because nobody trusts him, and Sergeant Duffy really is in a no-win situation.
Adrian McKinty was born and grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He studied philosophy at Oxford University before moving to Australia and to New York. He is the author of more than a dozen crime novels, including the award-winning standalone thriller The Chain, which was a New York Times and #1 international bestseller. McKinty’s books have been translated into over forty languages, and he has won the Edgar Award, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Ned Kelly Award (three times), the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Macavity Award, and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. His novel The Island was an instant New York Times bestseller and made their “Best Thrillers of 2022” list.
Gerard Doyle, a seasoned audio narrator, he has been awarded dozens of AudioFile Earphones Awards, was named a Best Voice in Young Adult Fiction in 2008, and won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. He was born of Irish parents and raised and educated in England. In Great Britain he has enjoyed an extensive career in both television and repertory theater and toured nationally and internationally with the English Shakespeare Company. He has appeared in London’s West End in the gritty musical The Hired Man. In America he has appeared on Broadway in The Weir and on television in New York Undercover and Law & Order. He has taught drama at Ross School for the several years.
Reviews
“If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland, The Cold Cold Ground is what he would have written.”
“A masterpiece of Troubles crime fiction.”
“A crime novel, fast-paced, intricate, and genre to the core.”
“McKinty creates a marvelous sense of time and place.”
“McKinty’s fine police procedural is also the ultimate page-turner.”
“Everything in this novel hits all the right notes, from its brilliant evocation of time and place to razor-sharp dialogue to detailed police procedures.”
“Reader Gerard Doyle captures every ironic twitch of McKinty’s world-weary Duffy…In each note of Doyle’s narration you hear Duffy’s resignation to the madness surrounding him. The plots are riveting, but the front-row seat to Duffy’s deteriorating equilibrium makes them even better.”
“The audiobook exceeds all expectations because of narrator Gerard Doyle. His storytelling is understated, and his dialect work is remarkable…Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award.”
“[A] deft mix of noirish melancholy with express-train pacing and blockbuster-ready action.”
“A journey into a terrifying and almost dreamlike labyrinth of violence and betrayal.”
“A razor-sharp thriller…told with style, courage, and dark-as-night wit.”
“Riveting, brilliant, and just about the best book yet on Northern Ireland.”
“A dark-humored shamus in the Philip Marlowe tradition.”
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