Irish Crime Fiction

It’s the year 2000, and while Bunny McGarry is theoretically on sabbatical from the police, he just can’t help sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong. Rosie Flint is an old acquaintance of Bunny’s whose boyfriend mysteriously disappears off the face of the Earth. What starts out as a simple missing person’s case soon gets a whole lot more complicated when it emerges that the boyfriend is not who he claimed to be, and there are some rather sinister people showing an unhealthy interest in Rosie.

In a town full of liars, who can you trust? When Detective Finnegan Beck is demoted from his high-powered job in Dublin and relocated in disgrace to the small Irish town of Cross Beg, he predicts boredom will be his biggest threat. But then a beautiful local teenage girl is found strangled in the cold, dark woods a mile from town. The prime suspect is the seemingly gentle drifter who found Tanya’s body. Beck seems to be the only person who can’t escape the feeling that Tanya wasn’t killed at random.

In this new installment of Ken Bruen's beloved Jack Taylor series, the whiskey-swigging Irish detective investigates a series of violent attacks on the local convent's nuns.

Mercy and Lizzie McCarthy are settling in to the charming seaside village of Shamrock Cove on the west coast of Ireland. Lizzie throws herself into organizing a book festival and mystery writer Mercy even agrees to come out of her bookish hidey-hole to do get involved. But then the star author for the event is found dead. James Brandt was killed by a falling bookshelf in his own cottage… The local detective is not convinced by Mercy’s suspicion of murder but when someone else turns up dead, the police cannot ignore it.

Three years after they narrowly escaped the IRA’s worst punishment for informing, Northern Irish sisters Tessa and Marian Daly have built a new life in Dublin with their young children. Though Tessa is haunted by the abrupt and violent end to her old life, she does her best to immerse herself in the joys of Finn’s childhood and the rhythms of her new job at The Irish Observer. It’s a small island, though, and just as quickly as they disappeared, figures from the sisters’ past surface to drag them back into the conflict.

Young Michael, an illegal immigrant escaping the troubles in Northern Ireland is strong and fearless and clever, just the fellow to be tapped by Darkey, a crime boss, to join a gang of Irish thugs struggling against the rising Dominican powers in Harlem and the Bronx. The time is pre-Giuliani New York, when crack rules the city, squatters live furtively in ruined buildings, and hundreds are murdered each month.

It's been over a year since Megan found herself entangled in a murder—much to everyone's relief, including her girlfriend Jelena and Detective Paul Bourke. So when a body of a young woman quite literally lands in her lap at her favorite Dublin cafe, Megan tries to do the right thing and leave the crime-solving to the police so she can enjoy the St. Patrick's Day weekend. After all, she has no connection to the victim. Or does she?

Detective Finnegan Beck is called to a crime scene - a remote house near the rural Irish town of Cross Beg - where a dog lies whimpering beside his beloved owner’s body. At first it looks like a burglary gone wrong. But Beck spots something his colleagues didn’t. The victim, Eddie Kavanagh, was wearing his smartest clothes. He’d brushed his hair. And, on closer inspection, a small velvet box containing an engagement ring is discovered in his pocket, along with a letter to a nameless woman, which seems to suggest she’s in danger.

10am: A mother rushes for a train after dropping her daughter at school but is reported missing when she doesn't return to pick her up. 2.47pm: The same train causes the death of a young woman; her body bound and placed on the tracks. When Detective Alana Mack discovers the missing mother has vanished from the same train that claimed the life of the young woman, she fears the worst. A killer is on the loose, targeting women and leaving their broken bodies scattered across Dublin's Dart train line.

After calling Ireland home for six months, Boston expat Maura Donovan still has a lot to learn about Irish ways - and Sullivan's Pub is her classroom. Maura didn't only inherit a business, she inherited a tight-knit community. And when a tragedy strikes, it's the talk of the pub. A local farmer, out for a stroll on the beach with his young son, has mysteriously disappeared. Did he drown? Kill himself? The child can say only that he saw a boat.

Paddy Buckley is a grieving widower who has worked for years for Gallagher's, a long-established - some say the best - funeral home in Dublin. One night, while driving home after an unexpected encounter with a client, Paddy hits a pedestrian crossing the street. He pulls over and gets out of his car, intending to do the right thing. As he bends over to help the man, he recognizes him. It's Donal Cullen, brother of one of the most notorious mobsters in Dublin. And he's dead.

It is only a passing comment in the post office in a remote part of Western Ireland that alerts police to the disappearance of Davin Faherty. But foul play is established when his unceremoniously wrapped corpse turns up in a bog. His brother falls under suspicion, but why kill over a near-useless piece of grazing land? DI Maureen Lyons leads the investigation but relies on trusty Mulholland, the old-school local policeman stationed in Clifden, for the legwork. She has other problems: an illegal cannabis farm and a prospector from a US minerals company who won't take no for an answer.

Rodeo Drive bridalwear designer Rayne McGrath expected her 30th birthday to start with a power lunch and end with champagne, lobster, and a diamond engagement ring from her fiancé. Instead, flat-broke and busted, she’s on a plane to Ireland—she’s inherited a run-down family castle....

Jack Irish - lawyer, gambler and people finder - is hunting down the villains who hijacked the winnings from his latest betting coup when he is hired by a mystery client to find missing barman Robbie Colbourne. But Robbie turns up dead of a drug overdose.

When Detective Alana Mack arrives at Clonabee police station, in a small Irish seaside town on the outskirts of Dublin, she doesn't expect to find a distressed two-year-old girl sobbing on the floor. Abandoned in a local supermarket, the child tells them her name is Casey. All Alana and her team have to go on is a crumpled note begging for someone to look after the little girl. This mother doesn't want to be found.

Tony, Hugh and Karen thought they'd seen the last of each other 30 years ago. Half a lifetime has passed, and memories have been buried. But when they are asked to reunite—to lay ghosts to rest for the good of the future—they all have their own reasons to agree. As they take the ferry from Northern Ireland to Scotland, the past is brought into terrible focus—some things are impossible to leave behind.

Ireland, AD 671. On the eve of the pagan feast of Samhain, Brother Eadulf and the warrior Aidan discover a man murdered in an unlit pyre in the heart of Cashel. He has been dressed in the robes of a religieux and killed by the ritualistic 'three deaths'. When a strange woman known as Brancheó appears in a raven-feather cloak foretelling of ancient gods returning to exact revenge upon the mortal world, she is quickly branded a suspect. But in their search for the killer, Sister Fidelma and Eadulf will soon discover a darker shadow looming over the fortress.

A mythical man known as Nightmare haunted young children for years. Until he became real. DCI Harry McNeil knows the legend all too well. Growing up in the Highlands, Nightmare was on his and every other child's mind as they went to sleep. Then, Nightmare claimed his first victim. A young girl, found dead in an abandoned cemetery with the words, I am Nightmare, carved into her chest. Two more victims, the same words carved into them. Then Nightmare disappears. Now, years later, there have been reports of graffiti being sprayed around Inverness and on graves in old cemeteries.

When human remains are found in a fisherman's crab pot, Detective Alana Mack faces her toughest case yet. As she unravels a complex web of genetic links, Alana becomes the target of a seemingly random attack, leaving her injured and reliant on her ex-husband for help.

April in Florida and Benedicta (Ben) O'Keeffe is enjoying balmy temperatures during the last few days of a six month stint with a US law firm. A week later, she returns to Glendara, Inishowen, where a charity cycle event is taking place. The town is abuzz with excitement, but it starts to rain, causing the cyclists to postpone the start of their event. The rain doesn't stop—it becomes relentless, torrential. In the middle of the night, Police Sergeant Tom Molloy is called out to Mamore Gap, where a body, dislodged from a high bank by the heavy rain, has fallen onto a passing vehicle.