Irregulars is astounding. Kevin McCarthy is doing for Irish history what Dennis Lehane is doing for the history of Boston. Wonderfully written, tense, provocative and oh so highly entertaining. Shaping up to be THE SERIES of accessible Irish history. Cries out to be filmed.' - Ken Bruen
Dublin, 1922, as civil war sets brother against brother and Free State and Republican death squads stalk the streets and back lanes of Dublin, demobbed RIC-man, Sean O’Keefe, takes a break from life as a whiskey-soaked waster to search for the missing son of one of Monto's most powerful brothel owners.
Hired to find the boy amid the tumult and terror of a country at war with itself O’Keefe soon finds that the story is not as simple as it first seemed and that the truth can be hard to pin down.
The second book in the O’Keefe series, Irregulars explores a fascinating and complex period of Irish history.
Praise for Peeler:
A '...dark, brooding, morally complex masterpiece...' The Belfast Telegraph
Part war story, part murder mystery, this subtle but savage thriller evokes a time, a place and a breed of men which have all been airbrushed out of Ireland's history.' - Ed O'Loughlin, author of the Booker longlisted Not Untrue, Not Unkind
West Cork. November 1920. The Irish War of Independence rages. The body of a young woman is found brutally murdered on a windswept hillside, a scrapboard sign covering her mutilated body reads ‘TRATOR’. Traitor.
Acting Sergeant Séan O’Keefe of the Royal Irish Constabulary, a wounded veteran of the Great War, is assigned to investigate the crime, aided by sinister detectives sent from Dublin Castle to ensure he finds the killer, just so long as the killer he finds best serves the purposes of the crown in Ireland. . . The IRA has instigated its own investigation into the young woman’s death, assigning young Volunteer Liam Farrell – failed gunman and former law student – to the task of finding a killer it cannot allow to be one of its own.
Unknown to each other, the RIC Constable and the IRA Volunteer relentlessly pursue the truth behind the savage killing, their investigations taking them from the bullet-pocked lanes and thriving brothels of a war-torn Cork city to the rugged, deadly hills of West Cork, both seeking a killer, both seeking to stay alive in a time where 'murder’s as common as rain and no one knows a thing about it, even when they do.'
'a vivid, sometimes stunning evocation of a historical period through one police officer's life. - Detectives Beyond Borders
'...a page-turning thriller..' -Irish Examiner
