Dublin Trilogy Books in Order

The Dublin Trilogy is where Caimh McDonnell's fictional universe begins, even if the name has long since stopped matching the number of books. Set in modern Dublin, the series mixes twisty crime plots with fast, verbal humour and a deep affection for the city's pubs, back streets and institutions.

At the heart of the early novels is Paul Mulchrone, a man whose forgettable face lands him in the wrong room at the worst possible time. In A Man With One of Those Faces, a routine visit to an elderly patient turns into a shooting, and Paul finds himself on the run with nurse Brigit Conroy and unorthodox detective Bunny McGarry. Their uneasy alliance anchors the series, as an ordinary man, an ex-nun and a rule-bending cop blunder into serious trouble together.

Subsequent books widen both the cast and the canvas. The Day That Never Comes drops the trio into post Celtic Tiger Dublin, where angry protests, corrupt developers and a vigilante group with a taste for symbolism collide. Last Orders pulls long-buried secrets out of the Wicklow Mountains and threatens both Bunny's future and the survival of MCM Investigations, the ramshackle agency Paul and Brigit are trying to keep afloat.

Running alongside those present-day stories is a second thread that digs into Bunny's past. Prequel and midquel novels such as Angels in the Moonlight, Dead Man's Sins, Firewater Blues, The Family Jewels and Fortunate Son follow him through the late 1990s and early 2000s as he tangles with armed robbers, political chancers, corrupt colleagues and people he cares about far more than is wise. Taken together, they show how a young Garda with a strong sense of justice and a weak grasp of self-preservation turned into the legend readers meet in the first book.

The tone across the series is light on the surface and serious underneath. Expect sharp one-liners, running jokes about Dublin life and a cast of side characters who feel like people you might actually meet at a bar, alongside plots about institutional cover-ups, economic collapse and the thin line between law and justice. The books are pacey and violent in places but rarely cynical, keeping a soft spot for underdogs and lost causes.

The Dublin Trilogy also seeds the wider universe. Bunny's story continues in the McGarry Stateside novels, while Paul and Brigit spin off into the MCM Investigations series. You can read the books in publication order, starting with A Man With One of Those Faces, or follow the chronological path that begins with Angels in the Moonlight and moves through Bunny's early cases before looping back to the original trilogy.