Five Stars: McKinty Delivers...Again
Like most others who have provided reviews of this novel or audio book, I have also read and really enjoyed `The Dead Trilogy' as well as Fifty Grand. As mentioned, Michael Forsythe is a minor character, and reading those novels does provide a bit of an insiders view into this one, but you could also read Falling Glass first and go backwards, which I'm sure you would be compelled to do if this was your first exposure to the author's work.
So, what is so good about Falling Glass? Everything. From the first few paragraphs, it felt like getting back together with an old friend (McKinty, not Forsythe) and I was immersed in the story. This novel showcases McKinty's versatility as a writer. The stripped down, no nonsense writing style had me thinking Hemingway right out of the gate and was very different from his other work. The narrative voice even had a less serious, more relaxed feel to it. It was the perfect fit for the not so perfect, not infallable hero, Killian.
It seemed like McKinty let his hair down for this one and it paid off. Not mentioned by many is the fact the main villain, a Russian hit man, is one of the most evil, fascinating characters I have encountered in a long time. The cat and mouse game between Killian and him is tremendous and is what would not let me put this down. Clocking in at a genre standard 300 pages and loaded with excellent dialogue and almost non-stop action / tension, it is a fast read.
The whole Tinker (think Brad Pitt in Snatch) angle was brilliant. Coulter is every bit as intriguing as Charlie Croker in Tom Wolf's A Man in Full, and Coulter's right-hand man Tom, gives Duvall's role in The Godfather a run for his money. As with McKinty's other novels, not only was I highly entertained, but his expert use of setting, cultural references and customs, and history, expanded my knowledge in many ways. A great read that continues to prove McKinty is a huge talent who is here to stay and deserves a seat at the table with the best of modern crime fiction writers.
