Love a mystery? Want to swoon over the writing, characters, and plot while taking a trip to the Emerald Isle? Here are a dozen Irish crime novels that will keep you up all night.
Is there anywhere else on the planet that takes the written word more seriously than Ireland? Even the crime novelists that hail from here are artists who can weave Becket, Joyce, gallows humor, and a beautiful turn of phrase into a murder scene.
If you like your mysteries with a hefty dose of amazing literacy, writing styles that break rules and earn awards, and astonishing — if dark — beauty, here are 12 Irish crime novels you will want to read.
The Hunter
by Tana French
If you enjoyed French’s gripping Dublin Murder Squad series, this is not that. This is, though, one of the best Irish crime novels of the year.
French has been hailed the queen of Irish crime fiction, with good reason. But this takes you into the homes of the people who don’t talk to cops. The only cop here isn’t Irish and he isn’t a cop anymore. He is trying not to investigate anything. Even if he was, no one will talk to him, so.
And yet. You will keep be up all night turning pages.
The language in this will have you hearing the accent and knowing who is lying, even without knowing why. Read her other books first, sure. But don’t miss this one.
The Cold Cold Ground
by Adrian McKinty
The Cold Cold Ground is the first in McKinty’s Sean Duffy series. It is set in 1981 in Belfast, during the height of the Troubles. There are hunger strikes, IRA bombings, and riots. As Irish crime novels go, this is a powder keg that’s blowing up. This series is the best of the best.
Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy — the only Catholic policeman in a place the hates Catholics — investigates a series of murders with political overtones while trying not to get killed. Everyone wants to kill the police. Even the police want to kill Catholics.
McKinty is a genius, especially of character development. This fast-paced piece blends noir, and thriller with complex Irish political drama. Good craic, this.
Thankfully there are seven books in this series, each better than the last. Enjoy.
Christina Falls
by Benjamin Black
Christina Falls is the first in this noir crime series from Benjamin Black.
It is set in Dublin and introduces the broody pathologist Quirke. Grumpy, happier with the dead than the living, and perhaps nursing a drinking problem, Quirke nonetheless sees that things are not right with the death records of Christina Falls when she lands on his table.
Black is the pen name of Booker Prize-winner John Banville. His crime fiction is not as dense and spectacular as his more literate works but it’s not pulp, either, He might be trying for pulp here but this is a master at work. Every character in this is richly drawn. The series has grown to a large number of books.
The Lock-Up
by John Banville
The latest in the Quirke series, this one is written under Banville’s own name. The story pairs Quirke with Detective Inspector St. John Stafford and takes the two around the globe, into the underbelly of the Catholic church, and back to World War II. It’s a lot. And there is a terrifying conclusion. The writing is of a caliber you don’t often encounter in mysteries — or any genre.
The Ruin
by Dervla McTiernan
When Aisling Conroy’s boyfriend Jack is found dead, the police rule it a suicide. Then his weird sister shows up and insists suicide isn’t possible. Meanwhile, Detective Cormac Reilly is investigating a cold case — the death 20 years earlier of Jack and Maude’s mother. It all comes together in the end and you won’t see it coming.
This is the first of the three-book Detective Reilly series and it is a gritty look into who you can trust and who you you most definitely can’t trust in a small Irish town.
McTiernan’s debut novel won Ned Kelly, Davitt, and Barry awards for obvious reasons. She is (or was) a lawyer and is Irish, though living in Western Australia.
The Guards
by Ken Bruen
Welcome to Galway and the first of Bruen’s Jack Taylor series. This gritty tale is written in Bruen’s signature stripped-down, punchy, raw style and it takes some getting used to.
Taylor has been tossed out of his job with the Garda. (That’s hard to do.) Without work to get in his way, he is drinking even harder and dreaming of becoming Ireland’s best private detective. That is not a choice a sober man would make in famously garda-wary Galway. But then a woman walks in the door and we are all going on an odyssey through Galway’s ugly underbelly.
Every Dead Thing
by John Connolly
This is the first in Connoly’s Charlie Parker series. It is dark, atmospheric and set in Maine. Both Connolly and his traumatized, ex-police officer private detective hail from Ireland, though, and they bring with them all the brooding, ominous tone of that land — as well as a gift for language. Parker is hired to investigate a gruesome murder and finds himself hunting a serial killer and finding his own past.
Border Lands
by Brian McGilloway
This tense, atmospheric police procedural is set in the borderlands between the North and south of Ireland. It is the first in the Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin series, which is now up to five books.
A teenager is found dead. This is Devlin’s first murder. He has to work with a team on this because this is technically an international boundary. But he’s not sure he can trust his colleagues from the South.
The Ghosts of Belfast
by Stuart Neville
Book one of Neville’s six-part exploration of post-Troubles Northern Ireland introduces Gerry Fegan, a former IRA hitman. The ghosts of his victims haunt him, demanding retribution. Fegan’s only recourse, as he sees it, is to kill the men who ordered those deaths. Neville uses the guilt, horror, and alcohol-fueled pain of this character to create a thriller, crime story, and supernatural mystery that is complex and tense.
The Blue Tango
by Eoin McNamee
Based on a true story, this novel is the first of three that examines a true crime while turning it into a murder mystery. This one focuses on the unsolved murder of Patricia Curran in 1952 in Northern Ireland. The girl’s father is a judge. She is found in the shrubbery in his front yard. He is also the element that ties all three books together.
The writing here is unconventional, distinctive, and marked with a staccato rhythm and lack of verbs. McNamee has won a number of awards for his writing.
He Said/She Said
by Erin Kelly
The year is 1999. Kit and Laura, madly in love, travel to a festival in Cornwall. They witness a man assaulting a woman and help the woman. Or is that what happened? Years later, the now-married couple are in hiding and this event is coming back to catch up with them.
A fascinating psychological drama that will have you wondering who said what and where the line between truth and perception lie.
Little Bones
by Sam Blake
This is the first in Blake’s chilling psychological suspense series featuring troubled Detective Garda Cathy Connolly.
Connolly discovers an old wedding dress. Hidden in the dress are the bones of a baby. Set in Dublin, this story delves into secrets that span generations of women. This, as well as The Dark Room was shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year in 2016 and 2021 respectively.
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