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I'm an Irish novelist currently living in St Kilda, Australia
"Hardboiled charm, evocative dialogue, an acute sense of place and a sardonic sense of humour make McKinty one to watch."
---The Guardian
A couple more books, a few birthdays, some shuffleboard then a period spent in the digestive tract of earthworms, followed by molecular breakdown, the sun boiling into space, the heat death of the universe, atomic decay, perpetual darkness, a trillion years of nothingness and then, if we're lucky, brane collapse, a new singularity and a new Big Bang.
About Me
I'm an Irish novelist currently living in St Kilda, Australia
You can read a review of my latest book, The Cold Cold Ground, in The Guardian, here. You can peruse the review from the Irish Independent, here or the review in The Times, here. The Glasgow Herald's verdict is here and The Sydney Morning Herald chips in, here. Not to be outdone The Irish Times weighs in, here and the Irish Sunday Independent adds its two cents, here. If you want to know what all the fuss is about you can be a good chap and get The Cold Cold Ground on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Audible.com or at your local bookshop.
Followers
More about me
I was born and grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. After studying philosophy at Oxford University I emigrated to New York City where I lived in Harlem for seven years working in bars, bookstores, building sites and finally the basement stacks of the Columbia University Medical School Library in Washington Heights.
In 2000 I moved to Denver, Colorado where I taught high school English and started writing fiction in earnest. My first full length novel Dead I Well May Be was shortlisted for the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was picked by Booklist as one of the 10 best crime novels of the year. The sequel to that book The Dead Yard was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the 12 best novels of 2006 and won the Audie Award for best mystery or thriller.
In mid 2008 I moved to St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia with my wife and kids. My last book Falling Glass was Audible's Best Mystery or Thriller for 2011. I've just published a new novel for Serpents Tail called The Cold Cold Ground.
In 2000 I moved to Denver, Colorado where I taught high school English and started writing fiction in earnest. My first full length novel Dead I Well May Be was shortlisted for the 2004 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was picked by Booklist as one of the 10 best crime novels of the year. The sequel to that book The Dead Yard was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the 12 best novels of 2006 and won the Audie Award for best mystery or thriller.
In mid 2008 I moved to St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia with my wife and kids. My last book Falling Glass was Audible's Best Mystery or Thriller for 2011. I've just published a new novel for Serpents Tail called The Cold Cold Ground.
WORK IN PROGRESS:
All Hail McKinty!
"If Raymond Chandler had grown up in Northern Ireland he would have written The Cold Cold Ground."
---The Times
"Hardboiled charm, evocative dialogue, an acute sense of place and a sardonic sense of humour make McKinty one to watch."
---The Guardian
"A literary thriller that is as concerned with exploring the poisonously claustrophobic demi-monde of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and the self-sabotaging contradictions of its place and time, as it is with providing the genre’s conventional thrills and spills. The result is a masterpiece of Troubles crime fiction: had David Peace, Eoin McNamee and Brian Moore sat down to brew up the great Troubles novel, they would have been very pleased indeed to have written The Cold Cold Ground."
---The Irish Times
"McKinty is a big new talent."
---The Daily Telegraph
"McKinty is a gifted man with poetry coursing through his veins and thrilling writing dripping from his fingertips."
---The Sunday Independent
"McKinty is a big new talent."
---The Daily Telegraph
"McKinty is a gifted man with poetry coursing through his veins and thrilling writing dripping from his fingertips."
---The Sunday Independent
"Adrian McKinty is fast gaining a reputation as the finest of the new generation of Irish crime writers, and it's easy to see why on the evidence of The Cold Cold Ground."
---The Glasgow Herald
"McKinty is a storyteller with the kind of style and panache that blur the line between genre and mainstream."
---Kirkus Reviews
"McKinty's literate expertly crafted crime novel confirms his place as one of his generation's leading talents."
---Publishers Weekly
"McKinty crackles with raw talent. His dialogue is superb, his characters rich and his plotting tight and seemless. He writes with a wonderful and wonderfully humorous flair for language raising his work above most crime genre offerings and bumping it right up against literature."
---The San Francisco Chronicle
"McKinty keeps getting better. He melds the snap and crackle of the old Mickey Spillane tales with the literary skills of Raymond Chandler and sets it all down in his own artful way."
---The Rocky Mountain News
"The first of McKinty's Forsythe novels, "Dead I Well May Be," was intense, focused and entirely brilliant. This one is looser-limbed, funnier...so, I imagine, is the middle book, "The Dead Yard," which I haven't read but which Publishers Weekly included on its list of the 12 best novels of 2006, along with works by Peter Abrahams, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy and George Pelecanos."
---The Washington Post
"McKinty, who grew up in Northern Ireland, has an ear for language and a taste for violence, and he serves up a terrifically gory, swiftly paced thriller."
---The Miami Herald
"There's nothing like an Irish tough guy. And we're not talking about Gentleman Gerry Cooney here. No, we mean the new breed of bare-knuckle Irish writers like Adrian McKinty, Ken Bruen and John Connolly who are bringing fresh life to the crime fiction genre."
---The Philadelphia Inquirer
"McKinty's writing is dark and witty with gritty realism, spot on dialogue, and fascinating characters."
---The Chicago Sun-Times
"If you like your noir staples such as beautiful women, betrayal, murder, mixed with a heavy dose of blood, crunched bones, body parts flying around served up with some throwaway humour, you need look no further, McKinty delivers all of this with the added bonus that the writing is pitch perfect."
---The Barcelona Review
"I really enjoyed [Dead I Well May Be’s] combination of toughness and a striking literary style. Both those things are evident in Hidden River. McKinty is going places."
---The Observer
"This is a terrific read. McKinty gives us a strong non stop story with attractive characters and fine writing."
---The Morning Star
"[McKinty] draws us close and relates a fantastic tale of murder and revenge in low, wry tones, as if from the next barstool...he drops out of conversational mode to throw in a few breathtaking fever-dream sequences for flavor. And then he springs an ending so right and satisfying it leaves us numb with delight and ready to pop for another round. Start the cliche machine: This is a profoundly satisfying book from a major new talent and one of the best crime fiction debuts of the year."
---Booklist
"The story is soaked in the holy trinity of the noir thriller: betrayal, money and murder, but seen through with a panache and political awareness that give McKinty a keen edge over his rivals."
---The Big Issue
"A darkly humorous cross between a hard-boiled mystery and a Beat novel."
---The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A roller coaster of highs and lows, light humour and dark deeds, the powerful undercurrent of McKinty's talent will swiftly drag you away. Let's hope the author does not slow down anytime soon."
---The Irish Examiner
"A virtual carnival of slaughter."
---The Wall Street Journal
"McKinty has once again harnassed the power of poetry, violence, lust and revenge to forge a sequel to his acclaimed Dead I Well May Be."
---The Irish Post
"A pacey, violent caper in which McKinty vividly portrays [Belfast's] sleazy, still-menacing underbelly."
---The Sunday Times
"McKinty writes with the soul of a poet; his prose dances off the pages with Old World grace and haunting intensity. It's crime fiction on the level of Michael Connolly with the conviction of James Hall."
---The Jackson Clarion-Ledger
"The Bloomsday Dead is the explosive final installment in a trilogy of kinetic thrillers."
---The New York Times
"Adrian McKinty has garnered nothing but praise for his first two books. The third in the trilogy The Bloomsday Dead should leave no doubt that he is a true star. Fast moving and highly engaging this is a great book. McKinty just gets better and better."
---CrimeSpree
"Until The Dead Yard's relentless, poignant ending you'll turn these pages as quickly as you can."
---The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"McKinty's Dead Trilogy has been praised by critics, who call it "intense," "masterful" and "loaded with action." If your reading pleasure leans toward thrillers offering suspense, close calls, wry wit, sharp dialogue, local color and sudden mayhem, you wont do better."
---The Sacramento Bee
"Le Fleuve caché d'Adrian McKinty impressionne par la richesse et la diversité de son ton et de son écriture, passant avec aisance du lyrisme ample de la nostalgie de l'amour perdu au rythme saccadé du narrateur sous l'emprise de l'héroïne. Ce livre rare et maîtrisé est une réussite bien digne de la Série noire."
---Le Figaro
Eine eigentlich simple Story, die natürlich bereits als Grundlage für Hunderte Bücher und Filme diente, macht Adrian McKinty zu der mitreißenden Odyssee eines jungen Mannes, der in der Lage ist, sich seiner Umwelt anzupassen wie jene Kakerlaken, die er in seinem Harlemer Appartement jagt, studiert und sowohl angewidert awie anerkennend entkommen lässt. Nicht umsonst 1992 angesiedelt, ist Der sichere Tod der kongeniale Kommentar zum Wesen der Neunziger.
- Jochen König, krimi-couch.de
"McKinty - that guy is a friggin genius."
---Ken Bruen
"McKinty is a cross between Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyan, the toughest, the best."
---Frank McCourt
"McKinty is an exciting new talent."
---Ed McBain
"Daddy's book is really boring."
---Sophie McKinty (aged 2 1/2)
"McKinty is a storyteller with the kind of style and panache that blur the line between genre and mainstream."
---Kirkus Reviews
"McKinty's literate expertly crafted crime novel confirms his place as one of his generation's leading talents."
---Publishers Weekly
"McKinty crackles with raw talent. His dialogue is superb, his characters rich and his plotting tight and seemless. He writes with a wonderful and wonderfully humorous flair for language raising his work above most crime genre offerings and bumping it right up against literature."
---The San Francisco Chronicle
"McKinty keeps getting better. He melds the snap and crackle of the old Mickey Spillane tales with the literary skills of Raymond Chandler and sets it all down in his own artful way."
---The Rocky Mountain News
"The first of McKinty's Forsythe novels, "Dead I Well May Be," was intense, focused and entirely brilliant. This one is looser-limbed, funnier...so, I imagine, is the middle book, "The Dead Yard," which I haven't read but which Publishers Weekly included on its list of the 12 best novels of 2006, along with works by Peter Abrahams, Richard Ford, Cormac McCarthy and George Pelecanos."
---The Washington Post
"McKinty, who grew up in Northern Ireland, has an ear for language and a taste for violence, and he serves up a terrifically gory, swiftly paced thriller."
---The Miami Herald
"There's nothing like an Irish tough guy. And we're not talking about Gentleman Gerry Cooney here. No, we mean the new breed of bare-knuckle Irish writers like Adrian McKinty, Ken Bruen and John Connolly who are bringing fresh life to the crime fiction genre."
---The Philadelphia Inquirer
"McKinty's writing is dark and witty with gritty realism, spot on dialogue, and fascinating characters."
---The Chicago Sun-Times
"If you like your noir staples such as beautiful women, betrayal, murder, mixed with a heavy dose of blood, crunched bones, body parts flying around served up with some throwaway humour, you need look no further, McKinty delivers all of this with the added bonus that the writing is pitch perfect."
---The Barcelona Review
"I really enjoyed [Dead I Well May Be’s] combination of toughness and a striking literary style. Both those things are evident in Hidden River. McKinty is going places."
---The Observer
"This is a terrific read. McKinty gives us a strong non stop story with attractive characters and fine writing."
---The Morning Star
"[McKinty] draws us close and relates a fantastic tale of murder and revenge in low, wry tones, as if from the next barstool...he drops out of conversational mode to throw in a few breathtaking fever-dream sequences for flavor. And then he springs an ending so right and satisfying it leaves us numb with delight and ready to pop for another round. Start the cliche machine: This is a profoundly satisfying book from a major new talent and one of the best crime fiction debuts of the year."
---Booklist
"The story is soaked in the holy trinity of the noir thriller: betrayal, money and murder, but seen through with a panache and political awareness that give McKinty a keen edge over his rivals."
---The Big Issue
"A darkly humorous cross between a hard-boiled mystery and a Beat novel."
---The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A roller coaster of highs and lows, light humour and dark deeds, the powerful undercurrent of McKinty's talent will swiftly drag you away. Let's hope the author does not slow down anytime soon."
---The Irish Examiner
"A virtual carnival of slaughter."
---The Wall Street Journal
"McKinty has once again harnassed the power of poetry, violence, lust and revenge to forge a sequel to his acclaimed Dead I Well May Be."
---The Irish Post
"A pacey, violent caper in which McKinty vividly portrays [Belfast's] sleazy, still-menacing underbelly."
---The Sunday Times
"McKinty writes with the soul of a poet; his prose dances off the pages with Old World grace and haunting intensity. It's crime fiction on the level of Michael Connolly with the conviction of James Hall."
---The Jackson Clarion-Ledger
"The Bloomsday Dead is the explosive final installment in a trilogy of kinetic thrillers."
---The New York Times
"Adrian McKinty has garnered nothing but praise for his first two books. The third in the trilogy The Bloomsday Dead should leave no doubt that he is a true star. Fast moving and highly engaging this is a great book. McKinty just gets better and better."
---CrimeSpree
"Until The Dead Yard's relentless, poignant ending you'll turn these pages as quickly as you can."
---The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"McKinty's Dead Trilogy has been praised by critics, who call it "intense," "masterful" and "loaded with action." If your reading pleasure leans toward thrillers offering suspense, close calls, wry wit, sharp dialogue, local color and sudden mayhem, you wont do better."
---The Sacramento Bee
"Le Fleuve caché d'Adrian McKinty impressionne par la richesse et la diversité de son ton et de son écriture, passant avec aisance du lyrisme ample de la nostalgie de l'amour perdu au rythme saccadé du narrateur sous l'emprise de l'héroïne. Ce livre rare et maîtrisé est une réussite bien digne de la Série noire."
---Le Figaro
Eine eigentlich simple Story, die natürlich bereits als Grundlage für Hunderte Bücher und Filme diente, macht Adrian McKinty zu der mitreißenden Odyssee eines jungen Mannes, der in der Lage ist, sich seiner Umwelt anzupassen wie jene Kakerlaken, die er in seinem Harlemer Appartement jagt, studiert und sowohl angewidert awie anerkennend entkommen lässt. Nicht umsonst 1992 angesiedelt, ist Der sichere Tod der kongeniale Kommentar zum Wesen der Neunziger.
- Jochen König, krimi-couch.de
"McKinty - that guy is a friggin genius."
---Ken Bruen
"McKinty is a cross between Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyan, the toughest, the best."
---Frank McCourt
"McKinty is an exciting new talent."
---Ed McBain
"Daddy's book is really boring."
---Sophie McKinty (aged 2 1/2)
Who's been dropping by
What's Next For Me?
A couple more books, a few birthdays, some shuffleboard then a period spent in the digestive tract of earthworms, followed by molecular breakdown, the sun boiling into space, the heat death of the universe, atomic decay, perpetual darkness, a trillion years of nothingness and then, if we're lucky, brane collapse, a new singularity and a new Big Bang.
Me & the Mrs in our survivalist bunker
Adios and thank you for stopping by....
Humiliation, unhappiness, discord are the ancient foods of heroes---Jorge Luis Borges
The measure of a writer isn't success, but how hard he tried to do what he knew he couldn't do---William Faulkner
I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen---J G Ballard
I read the dictionary once . . . It turns out that the zebra did it --- Steven Wright
Times are bad. Children disobey their parents and everyone is writing a book---Cicero
Made in Ireland
46 comments:
On the In So Many Words blog Yvette castigates me for my dislike of ET (sorry Yvette but I really do hate that film) but she did remind me of a sci-fi film I completely forgot about: Galaxy Quest.
I had such low expectations for Galaxy Quest (Tim Allen is the star for heavens sake) however I really really liked it. I think it has one of the funniest first acts of any film I've seen. Sags a bit in the middle but comes alive again at the end.
Okay, so I said travel writer in the future gets mixed up in crime and it's actually time traveller film critic but I'm sure s/he gets mixed up in a crime. 1928, probably has something to do with the stock market.
Sci fi just writes itself.
Umm, yeah. I have a handful of applicable Irish jokes, but, considering my audience, I will refrain.
I should have thought of Galaxy Quest myself. Also, I should watch it again.
But where is the obligatory debunking of the film, people?
My questions are, one, if it is a phone, who could she possibly be calling, and two, why doesn't anyone around her find her behavior unusual?
John
Tell the truth, are you the agent from the future, in drag?
Josh
Wise move.
And on your other two points from the Franzen post. I'll read the review after I've read the book. Thats my long standing policy for a book I'm going to read.
Havent read his advice. Rule #1 should be: get yourself on Oprah or in some kind of controversy or both at the same time.
Seana
Oh to have live in this world of cynicism.
1. She's calling a landline. They did have phones backs then you know.
2. Everybody else thought she was crazy and kept away, just as we all used to do in the happy days when you could easily spot a schizo by his or her conversation with imaginary friends.
Wouldn't that have required some sort of cell phone tower that maybe someone would have noticed over the years?
Or maybe she's just calling the future. Maybe all the other people we used to think of as crazy were just doing so too.
OK, I'm convinced.
Seana
Hmmm, some kind of innocuous structure thats been doubling as a cell phone transponder for future time travellers, but which nobody suspects and is high enough over the city to work everywhere?
I have no idea what that could be.
Wow, I really wish I'd known that when I wrote the Hollywood Sign portion of that trivia book.
But I suppose then they would have to kill me.
Adrian, even if 'George' is from Belfast, would you pay to see a film made by this man?
For the benefit of others, his film "The Battle of the Bone" is about Ulster tribal warfare in a part of north Belfast known as the "Bone" (another part with a similar macho nickname is called the "Hammer"). Of course George is 'playing' (sigh!) with the "Battle of the Boyne".
My limitless knowledge of this epic come from the fact that my son Fergus was dragged unwittingly into its production. I will now want to see it just in case in the middle of the riot scenes, Fergus appears dressed as Charlie Chaplin.
Seana
No they would just erase you.
Philip
I think its pretty cool actually that you tangentially know this character.
And I've got to admit that when I saw that poster for Battle of the Bone I thought it was a hilarious title. And your kid is actually in the movie? Thats funny.
Speaking of north Belfast riots. I heard Carrickfergus was lit up by trouble this week: Eden Village, Carrick, Rathcoole - I think we know the charmers involved there, don't we?
As usual, it's not good to read the comments on YouTube. Online comments are generally annoying, but YouTube seems like the worst.
Still, I think the guy who said it's Lon Chaney may be right.
Adrian,
Yes, the 'charmers' included masked UVF gunmen recognised by the police presumably because they haven't changed their masks in 20 years.
Oh, and Fergus tells me that the "Battle of the Bone" is a triple-entendre, also having a Return of the Zombies theme. He says, like the woman in the Chaplin film, he had to scratch his ear at one point.
I have to wonder how the time traveler got there? Hot tub? Phone booth?
Or maybe it's a ghost, I'm sure I've heard somewhere that some of them can only be seen on film...or something.
Moviemaking does seem a much better project than rioting, whatever the result.
Yeah, I didn't think a punning title would get much criticism here. And triple entendre? It's golden.
That was a trip. Was the transistor radio invented back then? That is the only thing I can think it could be.
John
Who was Lon Cheney talking to?
Philip
A triple entendre? That sounds good to me.
I liked the report about the riot in Eden Village "rioters blocked a road" - there only is one road in Eden to block. Its all a bit pathetic really.
Glenna
Can't be a ghost. Ghosts are always willowy and good looking, except when they're trying to scare you.
Seana
Exactly.
Sean
They didn't invent the transistor until after WW2 - hence the vacuum tubes in all those radios and primitive computers etc.
Like all actors, Lon Chaney was talking to his agent.
There's a scene in the movie 1941 when some Japanese soldiers kidnap Slim Pickens and his radio and take him back to their sub. They can't fit the radio into the sub and one of the guys says, "we've got to figure out how to make these things smaller."
Some people say that's Spielberg's funniest movie.
John
Isnt there a line in Werewolves of London "I saw Lon Chaney talking with the Queen?"
Maybe Zevon was in on all of this?
What if she's just a loony talking to her hand? And has anyone here seen the Chaplin movie in question, or are we taking Belfast Man at his word?
If she's a loony pretending to use a cell phone in 1928, she isn't a loony, she's prescient.
John, you know just a little bit too much about all this to be entirely above suspicion.
I'm sorry, but every time someone says Belfast Man, I think of Piltdown Man. I like Belfast Man, though, with his obsessional devotion to Chaplin. Even though I've never been all that crazy about him myself. Give me Buster Keaton any day.
My great-great-great grandfather is also an extra in "Battle of the Bone." He time travelled (in steerage, of course) to get the role.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
No offense to Belfast Man, but... why?
Peter
He urges us to buy the DVD box set and see for ourselves, but that of course could just be a clever marketing ploy by the DVD company.
If I were a more cynical chap I would smell a rat.
Seana
Apparently if you buy the Harold Lloyd box set the evidence for time travel is overwhelming...why is hanging from that big clock if not to communicate some hidden message.
Its been there in plain sight all our lives!!!!
What I'd like to know is why the woman who travelled from the future with her cell phone just so she could land on a movie set is wearing clothes of the period in which she landed.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter, even I can see that she would have had proper period clothes constructed before she left. Sure, they're probably inaccurate, but how would we be able to tell that?
I expect the message that Harold Lloyd was giving will be crystal clear in another hundred years or so.
Why would she have had proper period clothes constructed but not proper period communications? Are you telling me it's easier to fake a petticoat than it is a telegram?
Peter
Well of course you'd take your phone for emergencies. The past is another country.
If the past is another country, she probably has to pay roaming charges.
Peter
Her bill is going to be shocking, but I have already thought of a solution: open up a bank account with one dollar in it and then collect the compound interest a thousand years from now.
I went back to the past and found out that that's a very old solution.
Peter
A few years ago I found these scam artists on the web who were offering to prolong your life indefinitely for the lowly fee of 10 dollars. The way it worked was this. You give them 10 dollars and they put it in an escrow account and it gains interest. You live your life and then you die, except that you dont, because your money accumulates and accumulates until in the future they discover how to do time travel and with this enormous "insurance" money the firm sends someone back in time to save your life at the moment of your death.
I'm pretty sure busybody attorney generals closed them down.
But the time traveller didn't get the clothes right. Obviously in the time traveller's native time (is that's what we call it?) clothes are all unisex and when preparing for this trip he accidentally ordered women's clothes. Probably made a mistake when ordering a communication device, too.
Maybe the cashier at the time travel shop was distracted, planning a trip of his own or joking around with other customers or... Oh wait, wrong thread, sorry.
John
Going back to 1941 for a minute. I thought the stuff with the ventiliquist on the ferris wheel was really funny.
Or maybe he/she was coming up to the cashier, still obliviously talking on his/her cell phone, and the cashier zapped him back into the past.
Revenge of the cashiers!
Let's say John is right, and our transvestite time traveler accidentaly ordered women's clothes.
Our t.t.t. discovers the mistakes, returns to his own time, and returns the clothes. But the cashier rightly says, "Sorry, ma'am, er, sir, but you were seen wearing these clothes in 1920. Ninety years is well past our 30-day return policy."
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
" ... scam artists on the web who were offering to prolong your life indefinitely for the lowly fee of 10 dollars. The way it worked was this. You give them 10 dollars and they put it in an escrow account and it gains interest. You live your life and then you die, except that you dont, because your money accumulates and accumulates until in the future they discover how to do time travel and with this enormous "insurance" money the firm sends someone back in time to save your life at the moment of your death.
I'm pretty sure busybody attorney generals closed them down."
Damned meddling regulators interfering with the free market.
==========================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Didn't WC Fields leave money in bank accounts all over the country? Maybe he's the time traveller, did he ever do drag?
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