A few years ago I reported the imminent publication of THE DETECTIVE UP LATE — a continuation (the seventh) in the excellent Sean Duffy series set during “The Troubles” in Ireland. Then nothing… I, for one, prefer the Sean Duffy series to Adrian McKinty’s more successful standalones (THE CHAIN and THE ISLAND).

I don’t know what took so long, but Blackstone Publishing is coming out with a hardcover edition of THE DETECTIVE UP LATE August 8, 2023. Hurray! Six years since the last Sean Duffy novel (POLICE AT THE STATION AND THEY DON’T LOOK FRIENDLY) is too long!

Plot Summary:

Slamming the door on the hellscape of 1980s Belfast, Detective Inspector Sean Duffy hopes that the 1990s are going to be better for him and the people of Northern Ireland. As a Catholic cop in the mainly Protestant RUC he still has a target on his back, and with a steady girlfriend and a child the stakes couldn’t be higher. 

After handling a mercurial triple agent and surviving the riots and bombings and assassination attempts, all Duffy wants to do now is live. But in his final days in charge of Carrickfergus CID, a missing persons report captures his attention. A fifteen-year-old traveler girl has disappeared and no one seems to give a damn about it. Duffy begins to dig and uncovers a disturbing underground of men who seem to know her very well. The deeper he digs the more sinister it all gets. Is finding out the truth worth it if DI Duffy is going to get himself and his colleagues killed? Can he survive one last case before getting himself and his family out over the water?