| Subcategories | | Condition (condition-type) | | • | New | | • | Used |
|
|
|
|
The Bloomsday Dead (Dead Trilogy) | 
 enlarge | Author: Adrian Mckinty
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Export
Category: Book
List Price: £4.21
Buy New: £2.79
You Save: £1.42 (34%)
New (6) Used (13) from £1.77
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 516147
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0743499492
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780743499491
ASIN: 0743499492
Publication Date: December 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: 100% Brand New! Delivery from USA in 1-3 weeks via airmail
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Tough, adrenalin-charged ride July 11, 2008
Roman Clodia (London)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is my first McKinty and though it's the third in a trilogy the back story is adequately explained so it's not a problem to read this without having read the others. The Amazon blurb details the plotline so I'm not going to repeat that. This is a tough and violent book but is written with a wry and dry humour than permeates the narrative. The hero/anti-hero Michael is surprisingly sympathetic, partly because of his voice, partly because of his moral and emotional vulnerabilities and partly because of his manifest intelligence - indeed my one complaint about the book is that all the villains are way too intelligent, all speaking with a middle-class tone and all incredibly well-read!
The emotional love-story too is a tad over-sentimentalised and the 'twist' about the daughter is flagged so early in the book that it's no surprise at all, and leads to an improbably ending.
Overall though this is an entertaining read, set, like James' Ulysses, on one day, though not all in Dublin. I enjoyed it but have to confess it's fairly forgettable as soon as you've stopped reading, with little to provoke my thoughts afterwards. Probably a fantastic tube or train read.
 Hasn't quite been brought off July 5, 2008
Mister Hobgoblin (Edinburgh, Scotland)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Adrian McKinty specialises in crime novels where baddies rise up from the pavements at every turn and where the bodies pile up in mounds.
In The Bloomsday Dead, we find Michael Forsythe - hero of two previous McKinty outings - holed up in Lima trying to hide from his enemies. And he has plenty of enemies - the kith and kin of those he has killed or conned in previous adventures.
Forsythe is tracked down by Bridget Callaghan, a former lover, former adversary whose boyfriend Forsythe had killed way back in the day. Bridget's daughter Siobhán has gone missing in Belfast and Forythe has a chance to earn his freedom from the vendetta by tracing the daughter. The action takes place on Bloomsday, the annual celebration of the day James Joyce wrote about in Ulysses. For added poignancy, this was the 100th anniversary, and just as Bloom had wandered Dublin looking for Stephen Dedalus, so Forsythe wanders in Dublin and Belfast looking for Siobhán.
McKinty is Irish, but has lived in the USA for most of his adult life. That's where most of his novels have been set, and it is a departure to return to Ireland. McKinty's Ireland is one where the dogs on the streets know the names of all the gang leaders; where there is a pecking order of gangs and politics rarely raises its head; where the local paramilitary groups are in awe of Bridget Callaghan, the boss of the New York Irish Mob. This doesn't quite ring true. Neither, I'm afraid, does the body count or the low-key reaction to it. It's not that the writing is poor - it is well written and has some level of structure to it. It's just that the constraint of containing all the action into the space of 20 hours or so makes for a frenetic series of high pressure encounters without much space for character development or basic reflection. There is some reflection on long ago events, principally to fill in details from the two previous novels in the trilogy (and, if I'm not mistaken, some text that looks very familiar...) but no opportunity to take stock of the current day's events. The tight timeframe also makes for improbabilities - could Forsythe really have had his abdomen sliced open, pass out, recover and proceed to brawling, running, negotiating and intuiting all day?
I think this is a fair story, told in a pacy way with some good ideas. It just hasn't quite been brought off. The story isn't quite worthy of the concept.
Wonderful writing October 3, 2007
Alice Chalmers (London UK)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a bloody and terrifying novel on the surface, and a most spophisticated and moving read underneath. This man writes with real strength and beauty about the world of men and not with the macho simplicity which usually accompanies the themes he addresses. He reminds me of George Pelecanos (no higher praise) and he gets better and better.
|
|
|
www.pcprotech.co.uk | |
