Irish Fiction Thrillers

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.

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.

One year ago, Lucy’s sister, Nicki, left to meet friends at a pub in Dublin and never came home. The third Irish woman to vanish inexplicably in as many years, the agony of not knowing what happened that night has turned Lucy’s life into a waking nightmare. So, she’s going to take matters into her own hands. Angela works as a paper-pusher in the Missing Persons Unit, but wants nothing more than to be a fully fledged member of An Garda Síochána, the Irish police force. With the investigation into the missing women stalled, she begins pulling on a thread that could break the case wide open.

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.

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.

Any wedding is a big deal in the small village of Kilbane - even more so when the bride is a famous fashion model. It's also good for business; Siobhan O'Sullivan's bistro will be catering the three-day affair. When the drunken best man is disinvited, Siobhan's own beau, Macdara, gladly steps in. But finding the original best man murdered in the woods casts a pall over the nuptials. And when a second member of the wedding party is poisoned, Macdara goes from being best man to prime suspect.

Siobhán is looking forward to visiting the new bookshop and curling up with an exciting novel - only to discover the shelves contain nothing but Literature with a capital L. Despite the owner deliberately limiting his clientele, he’s hosting a reading and autographing event featuring up-and-coming Irish writers. Among them is indie author Deirdre Walsh, whose body is found the next day in the back of the store.

Dermot Michael Coyne of Chicago goes to Ireland to uncover the true story of his grandparents, who left Ireland under a veil of mystery in the 1920s. There, Coyne meets Nuala Anne McGreal, a college student who helps him translate his grandmother's diaries. His grandparents, the O'Riadas, and the bloody history of Ireland from 1919 to 1923 are mysteriously linked to present-day peace talks between the Irish and English.

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.

As 1995 dawns in the North of Ireland, Belfast is a city of army patrols, bombed-out buildings, and “peace walls” segregating one community from the other. But the IRA has called a ceasefire. So, it’s as good a time as any for Monty Collins and Father Brennan Burke to visit the city: Monty to do a short gig in a law firm, and Brennan to reconnect with family. And it’s a good time for Brennan’s cousin Ronan to lay down arms and campaign for election in a future peacetime government. But then a man goes off a bridge on a dark, lonely road; a rogue IRA enforcer is shot; and a series of car bombs remains an unsolved crime.

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.

July 8, 1921. Ireland. A British Officer is shot dead on a remote hillside south of Dublin. November 22, 2015. United Kingdom. Former police detective Jayne Sinclair, now working as a genealogical investigator, receives a phone call from an adopted American billionaire asking her to discover the identity of his real father. How are the two events linked? Jayne Sinclair has only three clues to help her: a photocopied birth certificate, a stolen book, and an old photograph.

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.

In this gothic, virtuoso debut collection, Mike McCormack dispenses nightmares both stylish and macabre. "A Is for Ax" offers alphabetized look at the killing of a parent, while the title story tracks a chilling sibling rivalry. Other works here offer multiple-quiz on the road to Calvary, a door-to-door saleswoman trafficking in strange and menacing feats, and a self-mutilating artist pushing himself to the limit. These sly and dangerous stories show us a young writer who was already a master of wicked formal play, and whose sly takes on life and death remain profoundly unsettling.

Honoring the wish of her late grandmother, Maura Donovan visits the small Irish village where her Gran was born-though she never expected to get bogged down in a murder mystery. Nor had she planned to take a job in one of the local pubs, but she finds herself excited to get to know the people who knew her Gran. In the pub, she's swamped with drink orders as everyone in town gathers to talk about the recent discovery of a nearly 100-year-old body in a nearby bog.

Molly’s policeman husband, Daniel, is late returning home. He comes with a tale to tell: There was a murder on Ellis Island that day, and the main suspect is the spitting image of Molly. The circumstances are eerily similar to when Molly herself arrived on Ellis Island, and she can’t help but feel a sense of fate. Molly was meant to be there that day so that she can clear this woman’s name.

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.

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.

The thirty-fourth mystery in Peter Tremayne's long-standing and much-loved series, Revenge of the Stormbringer features 7th-century Irish super-sleuth Sister Fidelma.

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.