Glynn's novel is ambitious and it presents us with a premise that is believable and shocking. Gina Rafferty as a character makes her mistakes and suffers for them. And we get up close and personal with a number of damaged individuals who are more dangerous than they appear. From a high-ranking politician to a mega-wealthy business man to a modest tile salesman, each of them has skeletons in the closet that'll be dragged into the open as Gina continues to ask questions.

Gene Kerrigan has written a number of true crime books, so it's no surprise that his third novel should be a frank and knowledgeable examination of criminality. DARK TIMES IN THE CITY like WINTERLAND, has a gangland hit at the beginning. Unlike WINTERLAND, Kerrigan's scene is at the beginning of the book, but it is not the beginning of the story. And the hit is botched, thanks to the reluctant interference of Danny Callaghan, an ex-prisoner who, try as he might, can't seem to keep himself out of trouble. Danny's actions draw him into the centre of a gangland war game, and if he doesn't play, his personal losses will be huge.

With the acts of this story slightly shuffled, you could accuse Kerrigan of playing with the early Tarantino timeline formula, but I don't think that's what he was attempting to do. I think his aim was to show that there's a big picture to the criminal underground in Dublin, and that a person can unwittingly find themselves at the centre of it. In this case, the person is Danny Callaghan, and he's stumbling from corner to corner of this criminal canvass, showing us glimpses as he sees them. And so it's a fitting structure to a story that seems a little too close to the truth than you might be comfortable with. It shows us just how integral criminality can be in Irish society.

In ALL THE DEAD VOICES, Declan Hughes manages to fuse both big business scandal and gangland criminality, with the added bonus of an examination into paramilitaries in Ireland in all their shapes and forms.

Ed Loy's most recent case is the reinvestigation of a fifteen-year-old murder which draws him into some very dodgy circles, some old and some new. And there's a noticeable absence of friendly and familiar faces this time around. Ed Loy is very much alone.

This is the fourth Ed Loy book, and in it we find a much bleaker man than I remember from the novels preceding it. Now, for those of you new to Hughes' work, he has touched on taboo subjects such as incest, pornography and child abuse and, in my opinion, he has handled them well, choosing not to go down the easy route of sensationalism and condemnation, but offering, through Ed Loy's character, at least a little bit of reasoning and an effort to understand. But Ed Loy, in ALL THE DEAD VOICES, has a very definite opinion on the IRA, patriotism and the Troubles. As far as Loy is concerned, the IRA murdered people, plain and simple. But Hughes breaks from his usual strict first-person narrative in this one to balance things out a little and give us some opinions differing from Ed Loy's.

This is undoubtedly Declan Hughes' most powerful book yet, and my opinion of his work, which was already high, has gone up yet another notch. He's not only a great writer, but you can tell he tackles his topics with a real conscience. Put me down for the next Ed Loy mystery.

So, if you're talking about the economy, then yes, the Celtic Tiger has been spayed, neutered and declawed. It's a skanky moggy slinking around smelly alleys and hissing at rats. But in times of recession, there are other types of wealth to be found. And this little surge in Dublin crime fiction is surely one of them.

Gerard Brennan is an emerging Northern Irish writer. When he is not tinkering with a novel, screenplay, stage play or short story he runs Crime Scene NI, a blog devoted primarily to Irish crime fiction. He is represented by Allan Guthrie of Jenny Brown Associates.