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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slainte, Mr. Forsythe!, May 14, 2007
In this, which the dust jacket says IS the last of the Forsythe series, Michael Forsythe is forced to return to Ireland in order to help the woman he fell in love with and whose fiance he killed in the first book of the series.
When we first see Forsythe in this one, he is in Peru, heading up security for a hotel. For a moment--just one brief one--it seems he may have found some peace after all, a place where he can use his skills but not in overtly violent ways. But then, and quickly, it all goes to pot, and Forsythe is given a choice: return to help me look for my daughter, or die after this conversation.
Forsythe returns for more than one reason. He wants to help Bridget find her daughter, who has been kidnapped. He wants to see Bridget again. He wants a chance at getting rid of the albatross he's had hanging around his neck for years: Bridget wants him dead, revenge for the fiance he killed in her presence all those years ago.
The hunt for Bridget's daughter takes up a big part of the book, of course, but so do other things equally enthralling. For one, Forsythe is MUCH more in tune with who he is in this book. In the first book, he was an angel of death who didn't really much twig to the fact that he trailed doom wherever he went. Now, though, he's very much aware of it. Very much prepared to go where that takes him. He hurts people, kills them, and loses very little sleep over it. He's never lost a lot of sleep, but now he loses none.
The tension between Forsythe and Bridget makes this novel stand out even more than the previous two. Forsythe seems to encounter people who want him dead or in incredible pain every few pages or so, and it's a wonder he can keep his head straight through all the beatings and chases. I must admit that at first I thought "he can't possible be upright after that kind of beating" and "he can't possibly be thinking straight after getting the crap kicked out of him" several times in this one, but one of the things that becomes clear here is how Forsythe compartmentalizes and uses pain to move forward.
All in all, this was a satisfying third novel. I will miss Mr. Forsythe, but the end of this one seems natural, not contrived.
Now--on to another McKinty (a non-Forsythe one)!
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Harlequin does Bonnie and Clyde, March 13, 2007
Little spoiler bits alert...
I listened to this as an [...] download, as I had McKinty's previous books. Gerard Doyle continues to wear the skin of Michael Forsythe...he's amazing.
The first half of this book was vintage McKinty and it was wonderful. The conversation about Ulysses with a fellow plane passenger was hilarious; I was laughing out loud. The witty and sarcastic one-liners are very much in evidence, though some didn't seem as fresh this time around. Gerard Doyle even sounds older as he reads the older (but not much wiser) Michael. He's 40% of the magic of McKinty's books, IMHO. But by the second half, I had figured everything out. It was pretty plain what was going on, who the mystery person was, who Siobhan was, etc., but I still wanted to speed ahead to see if Michael makes it out alive. I was half-way hoping he'd go out in Bonnie and Clyde style, but instead, McKinty chooses to experiment with what would happen if Scorsese wrote a Harlequin romance. After it was over, I slumped in my chair and said, "What?! She's combing the kid's hair?!"
The wit, the lyrical language, the very graphic violence are the hallmarks of a McKinty book and they are fully evident here. Not as funny as the first book in the trilogy, not as bite-your-nails intense as the second book, but there were small chuckles throughout the book and a fair amount of pacing back and forth. The writing was just as beautiful. However, once Michael has his first conversation with Bridget, it's as if McKinty's mind was being pulled elsewhere and he just wrote to get it finished. Why did Michael not ask Slider who the boss was?
An unsatisfying end to the trilogy, but still some of the best books you'll ever read.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another great book by Adrian McKinty, August 16, 2008
We were previously introduced to Michael Forsythe in "Dead I Well May Be" and "The Dead Yard". I would strongly recommend reading "Dead I Well May Be" before reading "The Bloomsday Dead", because there are a lot of references to (and plot twists involving) previous characters that will be better understood if you are familiar with these characters already.
"The Bloomsday Dead" is a highly entertaining novel, but in a slightly different way than the two previous Michael Forsythe books. This novel reads much like an episode of the television show "24", with plenty of fast paced action and numerous plot twists. But, as usual, Adrian McKinty adds a touch of poetry between action sequences, especially when describing the beautiful (and sometimes not so beautiful) scenery of his native Ireland. I found the conclusion of the novel to be a satisfying end for our hero (..I'm not sure if hero is the right word for him), but I wouldn't mind reading more about Michael Forsythe either, if given another chance.
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