God’s Away on Business

Sean Duffy: Year 1 (The Sean Duffy Series)

By: Adrian McKinty

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

From the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Adrian McKinty comes the origin story of his most famous creation, Detective Sean Duffy.

Belfast, 1980, is the apocalypse. Bombings, riots, army on the streets, low flying helicopters, and ever-present rain. The grinding Northern Irish civil war between Protestants and Catholics has been going for a decade now. Hated by both sides are the police.

Sean Duffy Year 1 takes us into that world. Newly promoted Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy is given his first command at Carrickfergus CID.

In this prequel novella, McKinty takes listeners through Duffy’s first two weeks on the job. A case to solve and a chance to impress his bosses, if, of course, he can get out of it alive.

©2023 Adrian McKinty (P)2023 Blackstone Publishing

More Duffy!

I’ve listened to just about all of Mckinty’s books available on Audible. Following his success with Forsythe and Duffy series, I believe I read that another well known artist influenced McKinty to write books with plots that supposedly Americans would enjoy more. Unfortunately, two of his later books reflected that advice and in my opinion were not good.

All that to say: give me more Sean Duffy and Michael Forsythe!

Narration, Storytelling, Excitement…an awful lot of excitement!

This series is like a history lesson of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The circumstances, the music references, the style references, the intricate dealings of the various elite service groups, all of which merge into this timeline of Sean Duffy’s life as a Catholic policeman during the IRA war of the late 20th century. It’s epic and Sean Duffy is a legend. I will miss him now I have completed the series!! Adrian McKinty…how do you do it?? You are a brilliant writer, Thank you.

I wanted something ... more

I was so excited about getting to read/listen to this short little snippet of Duffy's life. (I was honestly a little appalled that it was only 1.5 hours long and Audible wanted $8+ for it--or a whole credit--but I bought it anyway.) I'm not sorry that I listened to this, but I'm not really happy that I did either.

Mostly, it was Duffy being Duffy, which is fine. I like Duffy. That's why I've listened to the whole series at least three or four times now. (I listened to the whole thing again before listening to the brand-new novel, Hang on St. Christopher this week.)

There was just something about this little story that bothered me. It kind of felt like McKinty wrote it for the money and not to really explore anything new with our favorite RUC DI. Like I said, it was Duffy being Duffy. I laughed a few times. I enjoyed seeing him move into 113 Coronation Road. But it wasn't new.

I also seem to be the outlier on this, but there's a part where Duffy takes some acid (Duffy likes his alcohol and his recreational drugs, so again, nothing new) and he talks to a dog. And then a tree. On the socials, I saw that a lot of people seemed to really enjoy that. I thought it was ridiculous and was a little peeved that so much of the 1.5 hours of the story was this scene. (However long it lasted, it was too long for me.)

Oh, well. Art is what it is. Subjective.

Gerard Doyle was aces, as usual.

The story was less than two hours long

My mistake for not catching that before spending a whole credit. I will be more wary in the future. I gave it the amount of stars it deserved as if it were the beginning of a decent book all the same.

Love Gerard Doyle

It’s almost impossible to not like Sean Duffy. The Troubles and Northern Ireland are an enigma. Hope that is really done and over.