Bloomsday Dead

Starred review from January 1, 2007
McKinty finishes up his knockout trilogy featuring Irish mercenary Michael Forsythe with his most visceral, satisfying effort yet (after 2006's The Dead Yard
). Perennial fugitive Forsythe has drifted to Lima, Peru, where he's grabbed by a couple of strong-arm men who force him at gunpoint to take a phone call. Bridget Callaghan, a former lover and the one-time fiancée of Irish-American mobster Darkey White (whom Forsythe killed), has finally tracked Forsythe down and offers a modest proposal: come to Belfast and find her 11-year-old daughter, Siobhan, who's gone missing, or take a bullet. Our man arrives in Dublin on June 16, when the city is overrun with Joyceans celebrating Bloomsday. Dodging various assassins, Forsythe makes his way up to Belfast. Back on his home turf, he sets out after the girl, apparently kidnapped by a fringe group of IRA paramilitaries. McKinty writes masterful action scenes, and he whips up a frenzy as the bullets begin to fly. Devotees of Irish literature will also appreciate the many allusions to Joyce's Ulysses
.

Starred review from May 15, 2007
In his third Michael Forsythe thriller, McKinty gives his antihero even more close calls than usual. Michael's enemies in the Irish American criminal world track down the renegade in Peru, where he is head of security at a hotel, to persuade him to go home to Belfast to rescue the daughter of Bridget Callaghan, his former lover and greatest enemy. All of McKinty's tales are extremely violent, and this one is no exception, with the bodies piling up as Michael overcomes numerous obstacles. Most of the events take place on June 16, during the 100th anniversary of James Joyce's Bloomsday. McKinty takes his chapter titles from Ulysses, with Michael becoming an ironic Odysseus struggling to survive his journey home. As always, Gerard Doyle provides a lively, often unexpectedly comic performance. No one could possibly interpret McKinty's continually exciting and surprising fiction as well. Highly recommended for all collections.Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr., New York

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