Through world wars and civil strife, the Bangor Express has never missed an issue, but now it is losing money and Rob Cullen has absolutely no idea that he's the man to save it. It's been a long time since Rob had a real story to get his teeth into, just as well then that he can rely on the Express crew to back him up. They're like a family. A dysfunctional, highly unpopular and poverty-stricken family.
Dan Starkey returns! An exciting, endlessly inventive new novel Hired to find the missing son of retired political activist Moira Doherty, Dan Starkey knows his new case is going to be challenging. Billy 'the Bear' Doherty, a criminal with a nasty drug habit, isn't an easy man to find - his mum is convinced he's been murdered. But when Moira herself is killed, Dan finds himself in the middle of a deadly game of cat and mouse.
Dan Starkey arrives on Wrathlin Island to investigate the residents' belief that the Messiah is alive, female, and about to start school there: it's not a commission that turns up everyday. He finds a mess of religious intolerance and illicit drinking in a tiny community that is big on religious fervour but small on hospitality. Apart from the Messiah's mum of course, who's clung to her sanity. And her lager.
A media billionaire's daughter disappears following a massacre at a Belfast student party and nobody knows if she has been kidnapped or caught in the crossfire. A controversial new abortion clinic is firebombed, and a fire-and-brimstone church movement is blamed. Hired to both find the missing daughter, and prove the church's guilt, Dan Starkey suddenly finds himself struggling to cope with two very different investigations...or could they possibly be connected?
The title, the terrorist and the punch-drunk pugilist... Fat Boy McMaster is a hopeless heavyweight boxer, who has somehow managed to become the champion of Ireland. His devious manager has set up a St Patrick's Day fight in New York against Mike Tyson, and he wants journalist Dan Starkey to write about it. Once in New York, however, McMaster's wife is kidnapped, the Champ is chased all over town by gunmen, and there's the Big Fight to consider too...
Dan Starkey is a young journalist in Belfast, who shares with his wife, Patricia, a prodigious appetite for drinking and dancing. Then Dan meets a beautiful and apparently impoverished student. And then, terrifyingly, she is murdered. Is it because she was not exactly who she claimed to be? Is it the IRA? A Protestant extremist group? A jealous lover? Before long, Dan is a target himself...
Ivan Connor's publisher has just turned down his wonderful new novel. His agent is out of ideas, and the only person to turn up at his latest reading is his mum. He's also desperately jealous of the marketable Francesca Brady, a hugely successful author of fat romantic books for fat romantic people, whose expansive hair and bright red lipstick attack him from posters everywhere he goes. But Ivan has a brilliant idea. He's going to beat Francesca at her own game...
Ex-journalist Dan Starkey is stuck in a grimy Belfast bedsit. His life is a disaster, and his only solace is the pub round the corner. He really, really needs something to get his teeth into. Fellow ex-journalist Mark Corkery provides that something. Corkery, an Internet horseracing gossip, wants him to investigate Geordie McClean, the man behind Irish American Racing. Simple enough for a man with Dan's experience, surely? But Trouble is Dan's middle name. And trouble is what he finds.
For many years Dan Starkey has been a journalist of some repute - mainly ill. Now he is back with his wife Patricia, and while they try for a baby, he is aiming to keep himself out of trouble. Had he not been caught in a rather awkward position when he received a phone call from Big Davie Kincaird, he might not have decided to return to the village of Groomsport. And had he not drunk too much in order to cover the awkwardness of seeing this friend he hasn't known for twenty-five years, he might not have found himself agreeing to go on honeymoon... in Florida... for three weeks... with Big Davie. What else could possibly go wrong?
If you found the person who brutally murdered a loved one, what would you do? Forgive and forget? Or take the law into your own hands?
Detective Martin Murphy is the law and he's back with a vengeance... Someone has started killing the killers - who just happen to have been under the surveillance of 'Confront', a support group for relatives of murder victims who believe that therapy conies through empowerment. Suspecting the group of revenge killings, Murphy goes undercover and joins them. But it seems that Confront have been doing their own detective work...
When notorious gangster 'Fat Sam' Mahood is murdered, the chief suspect is arrested nearby. But he seems to have suffered a breakdown. Incarcerated in a mental institution, he's known only as the Man in the White Suit. The suspect remains an enigma until Nurse Brenda calls on Mystery Man, Belfast's finest mystery bookshop owner, to bring his powers of investigation to bear... Intrigue, conspiracy, and ancient Latin curses all combine to give the Small Bookseller with No Name his most difficult case to date.
Radio shock-jock Jack Caramac is used to controversy - but when his four-year-old son is kidnapped, he knows he may have gone too far. Jack has no choice but to turn to Dan Starkey for help. Dan has finally given up on journalism, and resolves to catch whoever kidnapped Jack's son. Instead, he finds himself in the middle of a violent feud between rival drug gangs, as the case spirals ever more out of his control...
Dan Starkey, the ducking and diving hapless investigator, takes centre stage again in this brilliant new novel by the master of comic crime.
