Gene Kerrigan Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Gene Kerrigan is a veteran journalist that is as well known for the think pieces he writes as he is for his award-winning novels.

+Biography

Gene Kerrigan is a Dublin writer, and there are very few journalists in his corner of the world that are as prolific. Gene Kerrigan’s standing in the journalistic sphere emanates from the thirty years of service he has given to his craft.

Gene has a reputation for never shying away from difficult topics, and he will contend with any opponent that piques his interest, using his pen to bring insight to difficult situations, regardless of the backlash that might sometimes emerge.

To understand Gene’s devotion to his craft, you only need to look at the two awards he won in 1985 and 1990 for Journalist of the Year. Before Kerrigan took to writing fiction, he mainly wrote political commentary.

He was especially active in the 1970s and his work could be found in publications like Magill Magazine and the Sunday Independent Newspaper. Some people might have also seen his pieces in the International Socialism Magazine.

From pieces about Police Interrogation to works on Irish Scandals and controversies, Gene Kerrigan has been associated with Irish journalism for so long that it catches some people off guard when they learn that he is also a fiction author.

And who better to write police procedurals that delve into the murky facets of law enforcement and crime than someone that has been working within the less savory corners of Irish societies for several decades.

Writing fiction came naturally to Gene. It gave him an outlet, a means to take all the knowledge he has amassed over the decades about the world and inject it into well-crafted crime dramas that show people a side of the world they might be unfamiliar with.

+Little Criminals

Justin and Angela Kennedy are luckier than most people could ever be. They have everything anyone could ever want: money, love, and children. Their future is also pretty much limitless, open for them to explore as they might wish.

Jo-Jo Mackendrick is a self-made man. And as a pillar of Dublin Gangland society, there is nothing he won’t do to ensure his supremacy.

Enter Frankie Crowe, a wrecking ball ready to decimate lives and change destiny. Frankie is tired of putting his life on the line for small change. And as an ambitious criminal, he decides to finally step up his game and aim for higher rewards.

And the first step in his plan of ascension to a better life is kidnap, and he knows just the right men to make things happen.

Some people who have never heard of Gene Kerrigan typically stumble upon his work through ‘The Midnight Choir’. For others, it is Little Criminals that introduces them to the work of the prolific journalist.

Even though both books are supposed to be part of a trilogy, you can start with either one because they are both essentially stand-alone books. You do not need to worry that you might have missed something just because you are reading Little Criminals before The Midnight Choir.

And the two books are not particularly similar, though they are both police procedurals. Like a lot of Gene Kerrigan’s work, Little Criminals is set in Dublin and its surrounding areas.

You have a low-level thug who decides that it is high time he made his way to the upper echelons of crime. And to do that, he needs a big score, something that will catapult him to the top.

Frankie Crowe, the anti-hero in this story, breaks away from his old life and turns his sights on the many super-rich businessmen sprouting up all over Ireland. And the plan is to simply kidnap one such businessman and ransom them for a major payday.

And to execute his plan, Frankie and his three chums set about choosing a target and planning the job. However, things do not go according to plan. Not only is the target the farthest thing from what the crew thought, but Frankie isn’t exactly in the best mindset.

He cannot afford to look bad in front of his friends, so he pulls out all the stops in his efforts to impress, only making a bad situation worse. As he begins to spiral into insanity, his friends struggle to figure out what Frankie has up his sleeve, and if he is really in as much control as he claims.

People have compared Gene Kerrigan and Little Criminals to the likes of Elmore Leonard, which is high praise for Kerrigan.

The dialog is perfect, manifesting Gene Kerrigan’s masterful understanding of the world within which his story is set. And the pacing is fast. Gene keeps things moving, making sure that readers are never bored.

+The Midnight Choir

This Gene Kerrigan story brings Dublin under a bright and unforgiving light, exposing it as a city of Ambiguity, one in which the criminal culture hides behind clean faces. While the poor continue to fight for survival, small time criminals emerge to become millionaire businessmen, this while the police struggle to adapt to a dangerous world where the old rules no longer apply.

Gene Kerrigan uses this book to basically tear into the guts of Ireland to reveal the filth within. You have a large set of characters that Gene uses to explore the different facets of society, all of them distinct and equally relevant to the overall narrative.

If there is one word you could use to define this Gene Kerrigan novel that word would be ‘Authentic’. Standing at the center of this police procedural is Garda Detective Harry Synnott, a law enforcement officer who has endeavored to remain honest despite the difficult odds, even when remaining honest meant turning on his fellow officers whenever they crossed the line.

Harry is thrust into a number of cases, and the reader follows him as he endeavors to unravel each of them over the course of a week. The crimes themselves are not important, or at least they are not as important as the way Harry solves them. And the resolutions are definitely surprising.

It is books like this that set Gene Kerrigan’s unique voice apart.