Take the Money Trilogy Books in Order

The Take the Money books pull Joseph Flynn away from present day politics and into wartime crime fiction. The central figure is Dan McGill, a Chicago cop in the early 1940s who makes one choice the Mob cannot forgive. He refuses to go on the payroll. From there the story kicks into motion fast, with murder, stolen cash, a false identity, and a chase that stretches far beyond Chicago.

Three million dollars changes everything.

In On the Run, Dan survives a hit, strikes back, and disappears into the U.S. Army under another man's name just as America moves into World War II. That gives the trilogy two strong engines at once. On one side, it is a Mob story about men who do not let insults go. On the other, it becomes a war story about training, missions, comrades, and the strange ways war can both hide a man and expose him.

Cohort 1 pushes the action deeper into Europe. Dan, now living as Charlie Hart, operates with a special military unit and has to keep proving himself under fire while carrying a private problem no one around him fully understands. He is useful, disciplined, and dangerous when pushed. He is also walking around with a borrowed name and a pile of unfinished business waiting back home.

By Homeward Bound, the war in Europe is changing shape, but Dan's trouble is not over. He is sent after a fleeing Dachau commandant, and that mission gives the trilogy a different edge. The books are not only about combat. They are also about aftermath, accountability, and what justice can look like when the shooting starts to slow down. At the same time, Dan still has to reckon with the stolen Mob money and the old Chicago life he never fully escaped.

These books read differently from Flynn's Jim McGill or John Tall Wolf novels. They are more historical and more openly tied to wartime movement, but they keep the same taste for momentum, pressure, and stubborn protagonists. Dan is a classic Flynn lead in that sense, capable, wary, and always one bad break away from disaster.

If you like crime fiction with WWII action, hidden identities, and a hero who keeps solving problems the hard way, this trilogy is an easy place to start. Read it in order, On the Run, Cohort 1, then Homeward Bound, because each book builds directly on the last.