Duffy (novel)

Novel by Julian Barnes

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Duffy

First edition

Author| Dan Kavanagh
(pseudonym of Julian Barnes)
Language| English
Publisher| Jonathan Cape[1]

Publication date

| 3 Jul 1980
Publication place| United Kingdom
Media type| Print
Pages| 181[1]
ISBN| 0-224-01822-1
Followed by| Fiddle City

Duffy is a novel by Julian Barnes writing under the pseudonym of Dan Kavanagh. Barnes published the novel the year after he married the literary agent Pat Kavanagh, to whom he dedicated the book.[2] It is the first of a four-novel series featuring the title character Duffy, a bisexual private detective and ex-policeman with a 'phobia of ticking watches and a penchant for Tupperware'.[3] Originally published by Jonathan Cape in 1980, it was republished by Orion books in 2014.[1]

## Plot introduction

[edit]

In the quiet Surrey village of West Byfleet two masked men break into Brian McKechnie's house, cut his wife and spit roast his cat. This leads to blackmail and McKechnie goes to the local police but finds them strangely uninterested and so he hires Duffy to investigate. The investigator uses his contacts in the seedy Soho underworld to identify those responsible and finds they have links to his ex-colleagues in the police and to his own dismissal from their ranks four years earlier after being set-up for underage homosexual sex.

## Reception

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John Sutherland in the London Review of Books writes, "Duffy’s principal attraction is a kind of voyeurism on voyeurism, as the hero investigates the square mile’s ‘saunas’, peepshows and sex shops. The report which the novel offers as to what goes on in these establishments is given in a callously brutal and tasteless rhetoric"[4]

## External links

[edit]

* Official website
* Julian Barnes's pseudonymous detective novels stay under cover | Books | The Guardian

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c www.amazon.co.uk Retrieved 2019-05-02.
2. ^ Pseud’s Corner - John Sutherland Retrieved 19/9/2021.
3. ^ Duffy (Duffy 1): Amazon.co.uk: Dan Kavanagh: 9781409150176: Books Retrieved 2019-05-04.
4. ^ John Sutherland reviews ‘Duffy’ by Dan Kavanagh, ‘Moscow Gold’ by John Salisbury, ‘The Middle Ground’ by Margaret Drabble and ‘The Boy Who Followed Ripley’ by Patricia Highsmith · LRB 17 July 1980 Retrieved 2019-05-03.

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Julian Barnes

Novels|

* Metroland (1980)
* Before She Met Me (1982)
* Flaubert's Parrot (1984)
* Staring at the Sun (1986)
* A History of the World in 10½ Chapters (1989)
* Talking It Over (1991)
* The Porcupine (1992)
* England, England (1998)
* Love, etc (2000)
* Arthur & George (2005)
* The Sense of an Ending (2011)
* The Noise of Time (2016)
* The Only Story (2018)
* Elizabeth Finch (2022)

| as Dan Kavanagh|

* Duffy (1980)
* Fiddle City (1981)

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Short story collections|

* Cross Channel (1996)
* The Lemon Table (2004)
* Pulse (2011)

Non-fiction books|

* Nothing to Be Frightened Of  (2008)
* Levels of Life (2013)
* The Man in the Red Coat (2019)

Film adaptions|

* Metroland (1997)
* The Sense of an Ending (2017)

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