October 2021 Group Read Discussion (Spoiler Thread): The Cold, Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty

[Bill]

This is the thread for spoiler comments on The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty

Enjoy

[Shanequa]

I think I may have missed something but why did Freddie just up and tell Duffy everything that happened? Was he pretty much untouchable at that point and didn't think Duffy could/would do anything?

I didn't particularly enjoy the confession style reveal. It felt like a big exposition dump and kind of fell flat for me.

[Suzy]

Shanequa wrote: "I think I may have missed something but why did Freddie just up and tell Duffy everything that happened? Was he pretty much untouchable at that point and didn't think Duffy could/would do anything?..."

I'm still pondering what to say about/rate this book, but I agree with you about the end. I don't like confessional reveals, or those that go on as long as this one. I thought the ending of this book and the violence Duffy visited on Freddie seemed out of character and out of sync with the rest of the book. And I think Freddie "confessed" because he felt empowered by years of being protected from any consequences for his heinous acts.

Another thing that diminished my liking of the book was McKinty's descriptions of sex. At times clinical (descriptions of sexual body parts) and at times brutal, these were anything but inviting. Maybe the brutality matched the times, IDK.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

I remember reading about "the troubles" when they were occurring day after day in the newspapers. I was in my 20's/30's, living in Seattle, Washington. The problems in Northern Ireland were on the top ten problem list of Congress and the United States. Everyone took sides, at first mostly that of the Catholics against the Protestants because the Catholics were seen as the downtrodden class suffering under the boots of the insane and horrible Protestants. A lot of important Hollywood celebrities raised money for Sinn Fein charities. I saw a lot of TV shows (Miami Vice, for one, a very popular show with young people like me at the time) weigh in on the issue as well.

As time went on, it became clear the IRA and Sinn Fein were all terrorists, too, the same as the Protestant organizations, so many ordinary Americans washed our hands of Northern Ireland in frustration saying it's their crazy problem and moved on. To us, reading the newspapers and seeing the horrible bloody carnage on the 5:00 news EVERY day, it seemingly was an endless war without any way to fix it. We saw it like the Vietnam war was for Americans - a huge fricking problem with no way to fix it. There were a ton of American books, magazine articles, newspaper stories analyzing the Northern Ireland issues, which for many Americans boiled down to an apartheid situation based on religion, with the Catholics as initially the underdogs, but both sides becoming terrorists and mafia thugs.

I did not have to look up anything about the things and people mentioned in the novel at all as a result of the story being on the front pages in America for a number of years, with Northern Ireland leaders from both sides frequently coming to New York and Washington D.C. to give speeches here and raise money for guns for the paramilitaries and food for the bombed out.

I really liked the book. To me, it reflected what we were reading what it was like there apparently, plus it was a good police procedural. I have often stopped still today whatever I am doing to read stories about Northern Ireland and Ireland Republic ever since. The changes there have been astonishing, and so has the fact that there still are pockets of hate ready to flare up again in Northern Ireland.

[Suzy]

Thanks for sharing your experience as well as thoughts about the book, April. I also heard a lot about The Troubles when I lived in Chicago. Most of my Irish friends were Catholic and took their side, although as we now know there are always two sides to every story. Will you read others in this series? I plan to read the second as a buddy read with an IRL friend here in Minneapolis.