Irish PI's Aren't Smilin'

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here’s a short list of some recent mysteries and thrillers by a new breed of Irish novelists. Some are set in the Old Sod while others feature Irish-born detectives working here in the U.S. They’re all highly recommended:

Ken Bruen’s “Jack Taylor” series featuring an alcoholic, ex-cop, Galway PI :
The Guards; The Killing of the Tinkers; The Magdalen Murders; The Dramatist; Priest; and Cross. Irish Noir at its best!

Paul Charles’s 1st “Inspector Starrett” mystery, Dust of Death, features a Garda detective investigating murder in Donegal. A very promising series kickoff.

Declan Hughes’s mysteries featuring seedy ex-LA cop Ed Loy who now investigates crimes in Dublin: The Wrong Kind of Blood; The Color of Blood; and The Price of Blood.

Award-winning Irish novelist John Banville writes his mysteries under the pseudonym Benjamin Black and they feature Dublin pathologist “Garret Quirke”. Set in 1950s Boston and Dublin, the two books so far are Christine Falls and Silver Swan.

Of course, you can’t miss with the “Charlie Parker” series, set in Maine, by Irish author John Connolly. The 6th in the series, “The Unquiet” is just out and a little bird tells me that Dover’s own Matt Mayberry is a character in the book! Connolly has been called Ireland’s own Stephen King.

And we can’t forget the women…

Erin Hart’s Haunted Ground and Lake of Sorrows follow Minnesota pathologist, Nora Gavin, a visiting lecturer at Trinity College, as get caught up in such gruesome crimes as a body in a peat bog.

Tara French’s “In the Woods” is both a police procedural and a psychological thriller. A detective investigates a missing child in the same woods where, 20 years, earlier, his two friends disappeared.

Irish “cozies” are the subject of Dicey Deere’s Torrey Tunet series. Torrey is a 28-year old translator from Boston, now living in Dublin, and she probes “The Irish Cottage Murder”, “The Irish Manor house Murder”, “The Irish Village Murder” and “The Irish Cairn Murder” from the hamlet of Ballyragh.

The prolific Rhys Bowen has a historical mystery series featuring plucky Molly Murphy, an Irish immigrant PI in early 20th century New York City. The seventh book, “Tell Me Pretty Maiden”, has just been published.

And for Irish “oldie but goodie” mysteries don’t pass up Bartholomew Gill’s 16 police procedurals featuring Garda Police Supt. McGarr, Peter Tremayne’s 17 “Sister Fidelma” mysteries, or County Clare Inspector Matt Minogue’s detecting in the novels of John Brady.