Alex Gilly Books in Order

For the full Nick Finn and Mona Jimenez arc: Devil's Harbor → Death Rattle
For a maritime crime thriller: Devil's Harbor
For a border-set legal mystery: Death Rattle

Alex Gilly was born in New York City, then built a life that has crossed more than one map. He has lived in Australia, Canada, France, California, and the UK, and is now based in Sydney. That movement matters to his work, which often follows people navigating borders, institutions, and unfamiliar territory.

Alongside his own writing, Gilly has worked as a translator. He holds a BA in Linguistics and Spanish and Latin American Studies, as well as an MA in Translation and Interpreting Studies, both from the University of New South Wales. It is a background that suits a writer interested in language, divided loyalties, and the things people leave unsaid.

One of his translations, Thierry Cruvellier's The Master of Confessions, was longlisted for the 2015 PEN Translation Prize.

Reading came first. Gilly has described falling under the spell of writers as a child and teenager, then later learning that writing a novel means returning to the desk each day and putting one sentence after another.

The result was his 2015 debut, Devil's Harbor. The book introduces Nick Finn, a Customs and Border Protection marine interdiction agent working the waters off Southern California. When a patrol connected to a phantom boat leaves a body in the sea, Nick is pulled into a dangerous case involving smugglers, murder, and pressure from inside his own world.

In Death Rattle, Gilly returns to Nick and shifts more attention to Nick's wife, Mona Jimenez, a migrants' rights lawyer. After a young woman rescued from a sinking boat dies in a privately run detention center, Nick and Mona start asking questions that powerful people would prefer to bury. The story combines an investigation at the border with the strain that their opposing jobs can put on a marriage.

For readers, these books offer crime stories with sea rescues, smuggling routes, legal fights, and characters who have to choose between the rules and what feels right. The setting is not just scenery. The Pacific coast, the crossing from Mexico, and the machinery of border enforcement all shape the risks Nick and Mona face.

Alongside fiction and translation, Gilly later wrote a nonfiction portrait of his uncle, the art collector James Fairfax. It is another sign that he has worked across forms rather than staying in one lane.

Gilly lives in Sydney. His published work brings together his interest in language, travel, crime fiction, and the moral pressure that comes when ordinary people are caught in systems much larger than themselves.