All Them Dogs

For fans of Lisa McInerney, Gabriel Krauze, and Graeme Armstrong, All Them Dogs is a fizzing debut from one of Ireland's most striking new voices

Tony Ward has landed back in Lucan with his chest puffed up and a chip on his shoulder. After five years in the UK, staying out of trouble just like he'd been told to do, he's returned home to his west Dublin estate ready to reinstate himself into the gangland scene.

But things are different now. Tony's old mentor is dead and his best pal Kenny Boyle has gone on the straight and narrow. That won't do, so when an opportunity to work directly for Darren 'Flute' Walsh, an enforcer of notorious crime boss Aengus Lavelle presents itself, it seems like a no brainer.

Flute Walsh is a far-cry from the meek, quiet boy Tony knew in school. Working as his left-hand man offers a level of security against repercussions for the crimes he'd gone on the run for as well as giving him a way into the life he wants but none of that stops the big-man Lavelle making it clear that any trouble from his past will be Tony's alone to answer for.

Already burned by the empty promises of one dead mentor, Tony is keen to prove himself as his own man, but there is a pull to Flute Walsh, one he's felt before. With the fragments of his past life still in the rearview and a whole new gang of headbangers to contend with, it is a pull too hard to resist. As Tony turns his back on the paper-thin structures that support him he looks for stability in his new, brutal surroundings. But where is there room for love in a world like this, where anything that's buried is always unearthed and retribution is never far away?