Irish Fiction Thrillers

In his new life as a bartender at the Little Shamrock, Dismas Hardy is just hoping for a little peace. He's left both the police force and his law career behind. Unfortunately it's not as easy to leave behind the memory of a shattering personal loss - but for the time being, he can always take the edge off with a stiff drink and a round of darts.

The Great War is over - but in Ireland, in the wake of the bloody 1916 Easter Rising, anyone who served in France is now considered a traitor, including Nurse Eileen Flynn and former soldier Michael Sullivan, who only want to be married in the small, isolated village where she grew up. Even her grandmother is against it, and Eileen’s only protection is her cousin Terrence, who was a hero of the Rising and is still being hunted by the British.

In this prequel to the international best seller The Ruin, set 10 years prior, bright-eyed Carrie Ryan is at the very start of her career. When she has a hunch about an ongoing murder investigation, she knows it could be her only chance to prove herself and truly break into the “boys' club” of Dublin’s police force.

The small village of Kilbane is hosting a poker tournament at the local pub, and card sharp Eamon Foley, a tinker out of Dublin, is set to win the tournament. But when Foley is found at the end of a rope, it’s time for the garda to take matters into their own hands. Macdara Flannery would lay odds it’s a simple suicide, but Siobhán suspects foul play, as does Foley’s pregnant widow.

This December in Kilbane, if you’re planning to warm up with a cuppa tea at Naomi’s Bistro, you may have a bit of a wait - the entire O’Sullivan brood has gone off to West Cork to spend the holidays with brother James’s fiancée Elise’s family, including her grandfather, the famous orchestral conductor Enda Elliot. Siobhán is so happy for James and Elise, but she’s also quietly disappointed that she must put her own wedding to fellow garda Macdara Flannery on hold. Then a cantankerous conductor is discovered crushed under a 90-pound harp in a local concert hall.

Stocking stuffers like handknit scarves make the coziest of Christmas gifts—unless they're used as accessories for murder! When grinchy thefts steal the good cheer at a local nursing home, Siobhan O'Sullivan manages to identify one missing item before the tractor parade—a hideous shamrock scarf wrapped around a very dead body. The festivities go cold at Pans 'N' Pancakes the instant a diner dies while knitting a brilliant green scarf. Suspects pile up when frosty-tempered Carys Walnutt is found strangled by a handmade scarf auctioned at Arborville's tree-lighting ceremony.

A member of a prominent New Jersey family has been found dead on St. Patrick's Day—and Pamela Paterson and her knitting club have a parade of suspects . . . The Listers have been part of Arborville society for generations—though seventy-something Isobel Lister doesn't fit the role of upper-crust heiress. She's always been a colorful character, and her fun-loving spirit is on display at the senior center celebration as she performs some beloved Irish songs. But just minutes later, her body is found backstage.

American-born Cherise Williams believes herself to be heir to an old Irish earldom, and she's come to Dublin to claim her heritage. Under the circumstances, Megan's boss Olga at Leprechaun Limos has no qualms about overcharging the brash Texas transplant for their services. Megan chauffeurs Cherise to the ancient St. Michan's Church, where the woman intends to get a wee little DNA sample from the mummified earls - much to the horror of the priest. But before she can desecrate the dead, Cherise Williams is murdered - just as her three daughters arrive to also claim their birthright.

Family is everything to Siobhán: her five siblings; her dear departed mother for whom the family business, Naomi’s Bistro, is named; and now her fiancé, Macdara Flannery. So precious is her engagement that Siobhán wants to keep it just between the two of them for a little longer. But Macdara is her family, which is why when his cousin Jane frantically calls for his help, Siobhán rushes with him from Kilbane to the rural village where Jane and her mother have recently moved. In a cottage, Ellen Delaney lies on her bed in a fancy red dress, no longer breathing.

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.

1916: Betty O’Fogarty is proud and clever. Spurred on by Betty's belief in her husband Seamus’s talent as a violin-maker and her desire to escape rural life, the couple elopes to Dublin. As Dublin is plunged into chaos as the Easter Rebellion of 1916, Betty gives birth to her first child to the sound of gunfire and shelling. A hundred years later, secrets churn their way to the surface, and Betty’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren uncover both Betty’s ruthlessness and her unique brand of heroism.

In order to secure my place in the Irish Mafia, I agree to an arranged marriage. A marriage with a willing bride, one groomed to be the wife of a mafia king. What I get is a redheaded beauty hell-bent on my destruction. That doesn’t stop me from wanting her. From needing to taste her ruby red lips. The fire that blazes in her defiant eyes lights a desire inside of me that demands I claim her as my own. While she wastes my time defying me with every breath, the North rises up demanding retribution for a crime that was buried a long time ago.

In 1972, Morgan Llywelyn tells the story of Ireland from 1950-1972 as seen through the eyes of young Barry Halloran, son and grandson of Irish revolutionaries. Northern Ireland has become a running sore, poisoning life on both sides of the Irish border. Following family tradition, at 18, Barry joins the Irish Republican Army to help complete what he sees as "the unfinished revolution". But things are no longer as clear cut as they once were.

Historic Inishmore Castle is opening its doors for the first time, hosting a charming weekend of whiskey tasting and soda bread baking. Sisters Mercy and Lizzie McCarthy are badly in need of a break, but their relaxing trip takes a decidedly unrestful turn when Mercy finds fellow guest Father Brennen slumped over the desk in the library… Did he have one glass too many or did someone want him dead?

Single-mom and police chief's daughter Kate Buckley is all about family. After she receives an urgent text from her younger sister Colleen, she puts her life on hold and rushes to her Irish-themed hometown of Shamrock, Massachusetts, where her family owns and operates a bed and breakfast. With her two daughters in tow, she's ready to fight if it means she can help her charming but hapless sibling. When they arrive, Colleen claims it was all a misunderstanding. But everything changes in an Irish minute when Colleen's best friend, Deirdre, a dance show star, is found dead in the parish hall.

It's official! Siobhan is now Garda O'Sullivan, and her five siblings couldn't be prouder. While her brother James runs Naomi's Bistro, Siobhan is doing her part to keep the village safe. Of course, Kilbane is pretty quiet compared to a place like Dublin, where Macdara Flannery has gone to be a detective sergeant. Then one night the local priest summons Siobhan to the church cemetery. There's a dead man in the graveyard - above ground. He's a stranger, but the priest has heard talk of an American tourist in town searching for an Irish ancestor.

Rayne McGrath’s efforts to save the rundown family castle she inherited were an epic failure after she accidentally set fire to the tower and tanked the budget. Is the castle haunted, or is she just unlucky? Meanwhile, her cousin, Ciara Smith, is anxiously booking their joint calendar with special events in the hopes of bringing the property around before they lose everything. When a bridalwear client from LA asks Rayne for help as her guest list spirals out of control, Rayne nabs the answer to her prayers.

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....

On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, the first great revolution of the twentieth century began as working-class men and women occupied buildings throughout Dublin, Ireland, including the general post office on O’Connell Street. Among the commoners in the GPO was a young staff captain of the Irish Volunteers named Michael Collins. He was joined a day later by a fourteen-year-old messenger boy, Eoin Kavanagh.

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.