Bartholomew Gill Books in Order
Browse Bartholomew Gill books in order, with Peter McGarr reading order, short summaries, series background, and simple advice on where to start.
Last updated: July 3, 2026
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Publication Order
18 books
McGarr and the Politician's Wife/The Death of an Irish Politician
by Bartholomew Gill
1976
Peter McGarr's first case begins when an American sailor is pulled dead from Killiney Bay. What looks like a local killing opens into gunrunning, betrayal, and a conspiracy that may be aimed at framing McGarr himself.
McGarr and the Sienese Conspiracy/The Death of an Irish Consul
by Bartholomew Gill
1977
Two former British intelligence chiefs are murdered on Irish soil, and Peter McGarr is sent to protect the next likely target on a trip to Siena. Spies, revenge, and international intrigue crowd this early McGarr case.
McGarr and the Cliffs of Moher/The Death of an Irish Lass
by Bartholomew Gill
1978
A young woman is found dead above the surf with cash, two passports, and a pistol in her coat. Peter McGarr's hunt for the truth behind May Quirk's murder leads into conspiracy, politics, and deep personal damage.
McGarr and the Dublin Horse Show/The Death of an Irish Tradition
by Bartholomew Gill
1979
The murder of elderly Margaret Caughey seems strangely tied to the Dublin Horse Show. As Peter McGarr sorts through her erased past, her elegant daughter, and a circle of uneasy suspects, he realizes more blood may be coming.
A Passing Advantage
by Bartholomew Gill
1980
General Mike Mackey seizes a fleeting chance to turn Soviet strength against itself, setting off a military crisis that reaches Washington, Bonn, and Moscow. It's a Cold War thriller built on one risky decision and its fallout.
White Rush
by Bartholomew Gill
1981
Six friends cruising the Caribbean stumble onto cash and cocaine after a drug deal goes bad. Greed splits them almost at once, and before long killers from both New York and the cartel are closing in.
McGarr and the P.M. of Belgrave Square
by Bartholomew Gill
1983
An antiques dealer turns up dead by the Liffey, and a missing Sisley painting opens a trail of art fraud, old war secrets, and IRA links. Peter McGarr investigates, but Noreen's eye for art proves just as important.
McGarr and the Method of Descartes
by Bartholomew Gill
1984
A revenge plot born from Belfast violence pulls Peter McGarr toward a planned public strike on Ian Paisley. This is one of Gill's most political entries, full of fanaticism, surveillance, and the terrible logic of vengeance.
McGarr and the Legacy of a Woman Scorned
by Bartholomew Gill
1986
While on holiday, Peter McGarr is drawn into the murder of Fionnuala Walton, the hard-driving head of a horse-breeding empire. Old love, family rivalry, and bitter land history turn a country case into something far more dangerous.
The Death of a Joyce Scholar
by Bartholomew Gill
1989
On Bloomsday, Trinity scholar Kevin Coyle is stabbed on the ground made famous by *Ulysses*. Peter McGarr works through literary feuds, private vice, and Dublin pride to find the motive behind a very public killing.
The Death of Love
by Bartholomew Gill
1992
New father Peter McGarr takes his wife and baby to a country resort, only to be drawn into the murder of a powerful banker. Family life and public scandal collide in a case that feels both intimate and sharply political.
Death on a Cold, Wild River
by Bartholomew Gill
1993
Suspended from the force, Peter McGarr still cannot ignore the death of Nellie Millar, the gifted fly-fisher he once loved. When her waders prove she was murdered, he heads west into a case tangled with memory, grief, and quiet menace.
The Death of an Ardent Bibliophile
by Bartholomew Gill
1995
The keeper of Dublin's Swift Library is found dead, naked, and poisoned, with scandalous videotapes nearby and his final moments caught on camera. Peter McGarr steps into a world where scholarship, vanity, and appetite make a lethal mix.
The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf
by Bartholomew Gill
1996
On a remote island off Ireland's west coast, three people are murdered and the enigmatic Clement Ford disappears. Peter McGarr and Noreen must piece together one violent night and learn why the Sea Wolf was worth killing for.
The Death of an Irish Tinker/Death of a Busker King
by Bartholomew Gill
1997
A traveler is found shackled high in a tree, and the killing points toward one of Dublin's most brutal drug bosses. To stop the next death, Peter McGarr must find Biddy Nevins, the witness who may be the Toddler's last loose end.
The Death of an Irish Lover
by Bartholomew Gill
2000
A young eel policewoman and her older boss are found murdered together in a Shannon town inn. What looks like a crime of passion pulls Peter McGarr into poaching, corruption, old grudges, and dangerous political shadows.
The Death of an Irish Sinner
by Bartholomew Gill
2001
Mary-Jo Stanton is found dead in her garden, a harsh religious device wrapped around her neck. Asked to investigate quietly, Peter McGarr follows the trail toward zealotry, old secrets, and a threat that reaches painfully close to home.
Death in Dublin
by Bartholomew Gill
2002
When the Book of Kells is stolen from Trinity College and a night watchman is killed, Peter McGarr is pulled into a bitter case of murder, politics, and ritual. The deeper he digs, the less sure he can be of anyone around him.
Where should I start?
If you want Peter McGarr from the beginning: The Death of an Irish Politician → The Death of an Irish Consul → The Death of an Irish Lass
If you want Gill at his most literary: The Death of a Joyce Scholar → The Death of an Ardent Bibliophile → Death in Dublin
If you want the later, darker McGarr books: The Death of Love → Death on a Cold, Wild River → The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf
If you want his nonseries suspense: A Passing Advantage → White Rush
Author bio
Bartholomew Gill was the pen name of Mark C. McGarrity, an Irish-American novelist who built most of his fiction around Ireland, its history, and the people trying to live through its troubles. He was born on July 22, 1943, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and he grew up there in a family whose Irish roots stayed close to him.
He studied English literature at Brown University, graduating in 1966, and later earned a master's degree in literature from Trinity College Dublin. That time in Dublin mattered. It gave him a working knowledge of the city, its speech, and its political weather, all of which would later feed the Peter McGarr novels.
Ireland gave him his central subject.
His path into fiction started in a simple, almost accidental way. After finishing at Trinity, McGarrity moved to Siena, Italy, and found himself running out of books in English. He later said he decided to do the next best thing and write one himself. That practical nudge became a career.
Writing as Bartholomew Gill, a name borrowed from his maternal grandfather, he introduced Dublin detective Peter McGarr in McGarr and the Politician's Wife, later reissued as The Death of an Irish Politician. The series kept going for twenty-five years and eventually ran to sixteen novels, including The Death of a Joyce Scholar, The Death of Love, Death on a Cold, Wild River, and Death in Dublin.
Readers usually come to Gill for the murder plots, but they stay for everything around them. His books are full of Dublin streets, west coast villages, university quarrels, old family grievances, church influence, political violence, and the odd corners of everyday Irish life. Peter McGarr is a policeman, but he is also Gill's way of walking readers through questions of loyalty, class, history, and what people will do when public causes collide with private pain.
He could write outside that frame, too.
Under his own name, McGarrity published other novels, including A Passing Advantage and White Rush. Those books show a writer willing to leave the Garda behind and try a colder military thriller or a broader, more international suspense story. He was not interested in one lane only.
One of his best-known books, The Death of a Joyce Scholar, was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1990. Along the way he supported himself with a mix of jobs and ventures, and at one point he even ran a bar in Niles, Ohio. In 1996 he joined The Star-Ledger in Newark as a features writer, and in 2000 he began writing the paper's outdoors column, which fit another big part of his life. He loved nature, travel, fishing, and being outside.
He kept working almost to the end. McGarrity died on July 4, 2002, after a fall outside his home in Morristown, New Jersey. He was 58.
What remains is a body of work that feels lived in. The crimes matter, but so do the weather, the pubs, the roads, the old arguments, and the ways private lives get tangled up with national history. That mix is what still makes Bartholomew Gill worth picking up.
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