EURO CRIME
Reviews
McKinty, Adrian - 'Falling Glass'
Trade Paperback: 320 pages (Mar. 2011) Publisher: Serpent's Tail ISBN: 1846687822
Richard Coulter, is a very prosperous Irish businessman and owner of a budget airline, who wants his first wife, a drug addict, located and the children she looks after returned to him. To locate her he hires, through an intermediary, a man called Killian. Killian makes a hard living collecting debts, dealing out threats and finding people who do not want to be found and he impresses Coulter with his suave confidence in describing his abilities and his general 'gift of the gab'. Killian wants to retire and do a less onerous career but he decides to take on this one last big job for a very tempting fee.
Coulter decides, later, that he needs his first wife silenced forever and he knows Killian is not a murderer, so he imports a Russian hitman to keep tabs on Killian and move in for the kill when the missing wife and children are located. The story moves on with a very fluid style until you just can't put it down until it finishes in a very unexpected way.
The author who originated from Northern Ireland has written five previous books and I have had the pleasure of reading THE BLOOMSDAY DEAD and his previous one FIFTY GRAND (which won the 2010 Spinetingler award). There is a lot of violence in FALLING GLASS, which is not designed for the squeamish reader, but there is also quite a lot of humour and romance which is something I very much enjoy in his writing, his style of writing being unlike any other British author that I've ever experienced. This is perhaps to be expected as he has lived all over the world, and currently lives in Australia, however this book is focused on Northern Ireland.
FALLING GLASS is a magnificent, witty, almost noir style of entertainment that I was very reluctant to finish, but it had to end. The author has a great skill in creating a believable background with the insertion of some Tinker dialogue and showing with particular references to unusual locations that he has made a lot of detailed research in the writing of this book and this is to be appreciated. If you have not read any books by this gifted author you should sample this one as I'm sure you won't be disappointed and I look forward to discovering in his next book, which country will form the background!
Terry Halligan, England
May 2011
Details of the author's other books with links to reviews can be found on the Books page.
More European crime fiction reviews can be found on the Reviews page.