Gun Street Girl (concluded)

Gun Street Girl (concluded)

The novel is based on the Oliver North Iran-Contra affair.  I didn't recall this aspect of the scandal, but North attempted to buy missiles through Ireland. The whole thing failed and he returned to America to pursue other nefarious means.

Because the book is based on facts, the ending is a letdown.  The bad guys are the suspected bad guys; the final shoot-out is cut and dried. The soldiers on the side of the good guys are incredibly well-trained and make short work of the smugglers.  Duffy is offered a promotion (or more correctly a career change) into M15, but the woman who offers him the job—along with a cadre of M15 operatives—are killed in a helicopter crash.  Again, real life. 

Definitely worth reading another McKinty novel.  Just a few false moments in the entire novel:  a strange fight with competing cops that ends up in a buddies-at-the-bar scene, and would Duffy tear up at the death of the bad guys.  Not the Duffy of this book.

Memorable passages.

Royal Ulster Constabulary has highest mortality rate in the Western World. P 10

On Ireland:  Far out here, on the edge of the dying British Empire, farce is the only narrative discourse that makes any sense at all. P 14

Reverend Moon raised as Presbyterian.  Moonies are basically radical Korean Presbyterians.

You have to take your pleasures where you can find them, and a bowl of mutton stew, a pint of plain, and a pack of Marlboros were rare comfort for the soul.

Ireland seems to be the exception in a continent that has embraced perpetual and universal peace.

Gerard Doyle, Audible reader, was fantastic!