George McFly Day!

What is George McFly Day? Well if you're a follower of this blog you'll already know and if you don't know it's that bit at the end of Back To The Future where's George's box of books arrives from his publisher and the family gathers around and George achieves a sort of redemption and a fulfillment of his childhood dreams of becoming a writer.
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We got a George McFly day in the McKinty household today as my box of books arrived from my publisher, Serpents Tail. It's the third book in my Sean Duffy series and it's called In The Morning I'll Be Gone (another Tom Waits title). This time Duffy has to solve an old school locked room mystery in the middle of a rather chaotic time in Northern Ireland's history. 
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You can read a couple of early reviews of Duffy #3 if you scroll down a little on this blog. 
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And, er, yes daughter #2 did have to be bribed with an ice cream to take this photo...

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In The Morning I'll Be Gone - The First Newspaper Review

The first newspaper review of In The Morning I'll Be Gone came out this week in Dublin's  Hot Press. The review is by Anne Sexton and is wonderfully spoiler free. For me this book was more of a traditional mystery than a thriller (most of it is taken up with an old school locked room problem) but Anne seems to have enjoyed the noir elements too. Anyway here's what she says in Hot Press: 
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In The Morning I'll Be Gone
by Adrian McKinty
Serpents Tail
Hot Press December 5 

Oh, a new Adrian McKinty book? Excellent! Featuring Sean Duffy? Even better! As a reviewer you should approach an album, film or book objectively, so the fact that I think McKinty is one of Ireland’s most interesting crime novelists might have been an issue. Luckily reviewers across the globe are equally enamoured. In The Morning I’ll Be Gone is the third Detective Sean Duffy novel and as with the previous two (The Cold Cold Ground & I Hear The Sirens In The Street) mixes fact and fiction. 

The actions begins in 1983 with a mass breakout of IRA prisoners from the Maze Prison. One of the escapees is Dermot McCann, a former schoolmate of Duffy’s. He’s sure that that “with the iron logic of a fairy story” their paths will cross again and this being fiction, they do. The grey, rain-soaked streets; the paramilitary tensions; the cultural and economic poverty of 1980’s Northern Ireland are all almost tangible and McKinty delivers a rollercoaster of a thriller that will keep you turning the pages until the very end. 

Anne Sexton
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The picture to the right is the latest cover art complete with Ian Rankin blurb. After I tweeted the cover I got a nice response from Mr Rankin himself:

Ian Rankin ‏@Beathhigh4 Dec

@adrianmckinty I read it while on tour in Canada. Really terrific, Adrian. Congrats - as is becoming usual!

Hopefully that sentiment will be shared by some part of the reading public. In The Morning I'll Be Gone will be available in the UK, Ireland, Australia & NZ on January 30 and in the US and Canada in March.

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In The Morning I'll Be Gone - The First Review

The first review of In The Morning I'll Be Gone came in last week. It's from Jon Page of Bite The Book and here it is (below). Remember Jon only reviewed the galley so the actual book is bound to be funnier, crisper and all together even more brilliant. The heart of In The Morning is pretty much an old school locked room mystery, a subgenre of mystery writing that I've always loved and always wanted to try. Anyway here's what Mr Page had to say:
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Every great trilogy knocks you out with the first one, takes it up a notch with the second one and then blows you away with the final chapter. There a few great trilogies. Many fail at the second hurdle let alone the final one. But not Adrian McKinty. The Sean Duffy books are a truly great trilogy and destined to become a classic of the crime genre and the third and the final volume is the best yet.

Things were not looking good for our hero at the end of I Hear The Sirens In The Street. Sean Duffy had been demoted out of CID and dispatched to the border lands. His career in the police force appeared to be over. That is until a mass breakout occurs from the infamous Maze Prison in September, 1983. One of the IRA’s most dangerous men, Dermot McCann, is on the loose and planning a campaign of terror against Britain. MI5 are prepared to do anything to bring him in, including giving Sean his old job back.

Sean has a connection to Dermot but no one is giving anybody up in Northern Ireland. Sean’s digging instead leads him to an unsolved murder. A locked room mystery that has got everybody stumped. But the key to unearthing Dermot’s whereabouts maybe be found in figuring out this seemingly unsolvable mystery.

As with the previous two books McKinty skillfully blends humour and the grim realities of living in war torn Belfast in 1984 with a gripping, realistic mystery. Sean Duffy is perfectly flawed and damaged but determined to do the right thing, even if that means doing a couple of wrong things. It is a tragedy that this series must come to an end because what McKinty has been able to produce has been very special and he has taken his writing to a new level. There’s a fine line between social commentary and compelling mystery and not many writers, crime or literary, can do both. McKinty has not only been able to pull it off brilliantly but he has done so over three amazing books.


I’m going to miss Sean Duffy but I also can’t wait to see where Adrian McKinty goes next.

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In The Morning I'll Be Gone

locked and bolted from the inside...

I finally finished the page proofs and copy edits of the third book in my Sean Duffy series In The Morning I'll Be Gone this week. The very last thing I had to do was get the permission of Tom Waits to use a verse from his song "I'll Be Gone" as the book's epigraph. Tom Waits doesn't always give permission for his stuff to be used in other contexts so I was pretty relieved when the rights came through last weekend. You can listen to the marvellous I'll Be Gone, here. (It's from the album "Frank's Wild Years" and in my opinion it contains some of funniest lines in all of twentieth century popular music.) 
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The bulk of my In The Morning I'll Be Gone is taken up with a locked room mystery. I've never written a locked room mystery before but I've read several over the years and designing one has been an extremely enjoyable intellectual exercise. And rest assured that I'm not the kind of bastard who will cheat you with a supernatural solution or who won't give you enough information to solve the puzzle for yourselves. I certainly won't insult your intelligence and lie to you (the unforgivable sin of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo's locked room portion.)
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You can read the first draft of the first 6 chapters of In The Morning I'll Be Gone, here. The book has changed a little bit since this first draft: it's tighter and I think funnier but these first draft chapters certainly give you a little of its flavour. And you can of course get the first two volumes of the, ahem, award winning, Duffy series on Amazon, Audible, Book Depository or at all reputable book shops. This may be the last (Duffy) book I ever write so hopefully you'll enjoy this swansong, if it is the swansong...

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Page Proofs

I've been working on the page proofs for the third Sean Duffy novel, In The Morning I'll Be Gone. It's the school holidays at the moment and the house has been a little nuts so I took a cheap flight down to Hobart and then a bus down to Dover, Tasmania where I rented a cabin for a few days - which seemed like something a real writer would do. Dover is a pretty little out of the way town. There are a few fishermen, a few retirees and a few dodgy looking jailhouse inked Brits who I reckon have been shipped here to the far side of the world in some kind of Scotland Yard witness protection scheme.
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You don't really think of extremes of cold in Australia but the first night in my cabin it was raining so hard and it got so cold that I had to get up and turn on the gas cooker and get warm by the welcoming blue flame. In the morning the mountain behind the town, Adamson's Peak, had a dusting of snow on top (but most of the snow had burned off by lunchtime when I took this photograph). There wasn't much to do in Dover which was precisely the point as I was forced to work my way through the galley proofs of In The Morning I'll Be Gone. Although if I'm perfectly honest I was so bloody freezing that I had to take breaks every twenty minutes or so to warm my fingers over the gas cooker.
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And how is the book? Well I think it's the best Duffy yet. There's a taut thriller element, Michael Forsythe makes an appearance and if you like the intellectual puzzle of a locked room mystery I think you'll dig it. It'll be out in January and as usual I'll give away one of the rather attractive galleys here on the blog some time before that. 

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In The Morning I'll Be Gone

locked and bolted from the inside...

I'm just finishing up the third Sean Duffy novel called In The Morning I'll Be Gone which, of course, is another homage/rip off of a Tom Waits title...You can listen to the marvellous In The Morning I'll Be Gone, here. (It's the one with the fantastic "I have a French companion" line which I think is the greatest line in the history of popular music.) 
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The bulk of my In The Morning I'll Be Gone is going to be taken up with a locked room mystery. I've never written a locked room mystery before but I've read several over the years and designing one has been an extremely enjoyable intellectual exercise. And rest assured that I'm not the kind of bastard who will cheat you with a supernatural solution or who won't give you enough information to solve the puzzle for yourselves. I certainly won't insult your intelligence and lie to you (the unforgivable sin of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo's locked room portion.)
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You can read the first 6 chapters of In The Morning I'll Be Gone, here and if my publishers allow it I'll try and get the first 100 pages or so up on this blog in the next couple of months. The first 6 chapters don't quite get you into the locked room problem, they merely show you Duffy in the shit and starting to climb out again but like I say I'll try to add to the story in the next few months. You can get the first two volumes of the, ahem, award winning, Duffy series on Amazon, Audible, Book Depository or at all reputable book shops. This may be the last (Duffy) book I ever write so hopefully you'll enjoy this swansong if it is the swansong...

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