Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Hang on St. Christopher by Adrian McKinty

Hang on St. Christopher by Adrian McKinty, the eighth installment of the Sean Duffy series, is set to be released by Blackstone Publishing on 4 March. Duffy is a brilliantly conceived and sensitively executed character, exquisitely nuanced. Crime fiction has few police detectives that are also poets; I can only think of Adam Dalgliesh, and Dalgliesh didn’t toss around historical references and cite obscure musical recordings the way Duffy does. Dalgliesh could manage his career, however, which Duffy can’t, despite his innate detective skills and impressive literary knowledge. “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward” might be Duffy’s motto.

What crime fiction does have plenty of is jaded star detectives, burned-out and tired of bureaucratic nonsense. McKinty doesn’t just breathe new life into this classic trope, he plugs it into a 220-volt outlet and turns the power on high.

It’s 1992 and the bloody Northern Ireland conflict known euphemistically as The Troubles continues, perhaps with not quite as much fervor as in years past. But Duffy, a Catholic and a policeman, doubly undesirable characteristics in Northern Ireland, still routinely checks his vehicle for bombs and sets small traps in his house to learn if someone has broken in. He has managed to move his wife and small daughter 20 miles across the Irish Sea to Scotland and relative safety. He works three days every two weeks in the provincial police station in Carrickfergus, on the eastern coast of Ireland a short ferry ride from his home in Scotland, working traffic and administrative duties while he marks time to be eligible for full pension. He knows his career is all but over, yet he can’t find another interest like his fellow part-timer Sergeant John McCrabban has. McCrabban’s invitations to Duffy to assist with his dairy farm are promptly declined.

His replacement is on leave when a shooting is reported so the investigation falls to Duffy. It looks like a carjacking but Duffy’s instincts say something else. In no time at all, he’s up to his ears in organized crime (who else would have the nerve to crash a wake for a mobster?) and IRA thugs.

The hard-driving action is as relentless as Duffy’s pop culture quips. Strong plot, elegant writing, subtly powerful setting, an incredibly good read. We’ll be seeing this book mentioned often in the major award nominations for 2025. Highly recommended.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Blackstone Publishing, Inc.; Unabridged edition (March 4, 2025)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎310 pages

·         ISBN-13: ‎979-8212905022

  

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4i0nBMN

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.