Irish Troubles Books in Order

Under the umbrella title often printed as Stories of the Irish Troubles, this sequence gathers Patrick Taylor's more hard‑edged fiction about Northern Ireland's conflict from the late 1960s onward. Instead of village surgeries and Christmas festivals, these books inhabit bomb factories, army checkpoints, and cramped terraced houses in Belfast and across Ulster.

Only Wounded is a collection of linked stories that form the spine of the sequence. Taylor moves between Catholic and Protestant characters, showing how car bombs, street riots, and paramilitary intimidation seep into ordinary routines. Long‑running friendships, such as those between schoolmates from different sides of the divide, are tested as people try to balance survival, loyalty, and basic decency.

In Pray for Us Sinners, he tightens the focus into a full‑length thriller set in Belfast in 1973. British Army bomb‑disposal officer Marcus Richardson, scarred by a near‑fatal explosion, agrees to go undercover and infiltrate the Provisional IRA, while Davy MacCutcheon, a gifted IRA armourer, keeps building devices he no longer fully believes in. Their parallel stories underline how quickly clean moral lines blur once violence becomes routine.

Now and in the Hour of Our Death returns to some of these characters years later, in 1983, with scenes in and around the Maze (Long Kesh) prison and in the lives of the people waiting outside its walls. The book braids together a planned escape, old betrayals, and the enduring pull between Davy McCutcheon and his former lover Fiona Kavanagh, asking what it takes to walk away from the Cause.

Taken together, the Irish Troubles books are less cozy than the Irish Country series, with more explicit violence and a tighter sense of jeopardy. At the same time, Taylor brings the same interest in everyday detail and in people who are neither saints nor monsters, whether they wear British uniforms, carry Armalites, or simply try to get the children to school in one piece.

You can read the volumes in publication order, starting with Only Wounded and moving on to Pray for Us Sinners and Now and in the Hour of Our Death, or dip into them individually; each stands on its own while echoing events and relationships from the others. Expect a mix of procedural detail, emotional fallout, and a steady awareness of how long conflicts linger after the news cameras move on.