bgg616's review against another edition
4.0
Love this guy Michael Forsyth. These books would make great action films. Too bad Liam Neeson is too old for the role. Cliffhanger to the end and Michael is a one-man tour de force who gets out of impossible situation after impossible situation. The Belfast setting is a big plus, and at the end you wonder what's next. Want to see if there has been a follow up to this because I have to know....
dustin_o's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
jlmb's review against another edition
3.0
This would be great to read on a long journey, it's quite the page turner. You need to really amp up your willing suspension of disbelief, though. Michael, the protagonist of the trilogy, is at this point like a superhero or Wile E. Coyote, no matter what he keeps going. The majority of the book takes place on one very long day in Ireland. A day where Michael does not need to really eat or drink, other than a bit of tea at a whorehouse, some slugs of booze & a handful of morphine pills taken from the pocket of an elderly terrorist commander he has kidnapped. The morphine pills come in handy because over the course of that day he is in a serious carwreck - it flips and rolls, killing the majority of the car occupants(convenient!) - his stomach is gashed open by a knife(never fear, he sews up the wound while he's drinking tea at that whorehouse), he is beaten with a baseball bat, possibly breaking several ribs, is kicked repeatedly in the chest, he is hit with shrapnel from a rocket launcher, he possibly detaches a retina during the carwreck (he mentions once that is eye is messed up but then never mentions it again) and of course he is constantly running - literally running throughout the city - either being chased or chasing someone. Whew! Oh, and he kills a bunch of people too. It's an exhausting day.
oakleighirish's review against another edition
3.0
Another enjoyable yarn in the action packed Michael Forsythe series. The whole story takes place with the span of a day - Bloomsday - and doesn't let up from beginning to end. Whatever The Bloomsday Dead lacks in subtlety and character development, it makes up for by delivering a wild, delirious ride.....
cdcsmith's review against another edition
5.0
I "read" the first 2 books in the trilogy as audio books. The way the 2nd book left off, I needed to know how the trilogy ends. I read faster than I can listen to audio books (little ears should NOT listen to this series - even in passing). I started the book this morning at the gym, stared at it at work, read a little more at lunch, couldn't pick it up again until after supper. I could not have wished for a more fitting end. There were some things I guessed right, there were somethings I did by default just because I ran out of other possibilities, but the characters were true to the end and I'm as happy as I could expect to be. Might not be a full on 5 stars, but it was a solid finish to the trilogy and better than 4 stars.
Now about the writing. What I love about McKinty's writing is how he manages to work in such beautifully written prose surrounded by all the blood and voiolence. Love it.
Now about the writing. What I love about McKinty's writing is how he manages to work in such beautifully written prose surrounded by all the blood and voiolence. Love it.
clambook's review
5.0
Life will seem so empty without Michael Forsythe. McKinty has a hit series under way with Sean Duffy, and good on him, but Forsythe has his own special charms, including the tendency to make awful decisions involving women. This is the last of the trilogy and so be it, but I'll miss him.
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