If you buy one book this month, make it this blistering Irish debut novel …
ALL THEM DOGS, the debut novel by young Dublin writer Djamal White (John Murray Press, €17, published on March 26), arrives laden with glowing references: when Anne Enright describes a book as “stylish, adroit and gritty”, we want to read it. Set in the underworld of west Dublin, All Them Dogs inspired a six-way auction before being acquired by John Murray.
Plaudits aside, this jittery, propulsive drama speaks for itself, from the first sentence. We’re plunged straight into the action as wayward Tony Ward, recently returned to Dublin after an enforced period of lying low, jostles for his place in the gangland scene. When he’s put to work with Flute, the inscrutable young enforcer of a powerful crime boss, he’s drawn in over his head. There’s a dangerous liaison, and a constant hum of tension and threat.
With this novel, White aimed to capture “that urgent interior trouble that isn’t visible to someone from the outside looking in …” as Tony Ward, swaggering around on the fringes of the drug trade, becomes sucked into a whirlpool of shifting loyalties. He’s relentlessly drawn to trouble, and the question is whether he can thrash his way out of the net that’s drawing around his neck. “When it’s all coming at you, you have to just keep throwing digs,” says Ward. “Back down and you’re good as dead.”
While it’s gun-laden and menacing, it’s also really funny, peppered with whip-smart, biting Irish humour.
The characters burn through the pages, funny, tender, bolshy, sad, ridiculous (Ward notices one gangster is wearing Ugg boots). You’ll be casting the TV version in your head – and apparently the TV rights have already been snapped up. It’s brilliantly observed: we’re in a world of strong smells – John Player Blues, damp and smoky flats, “manky beige” carpets, Dettol, oily bacon – and even stronger words. And while it’s gun-laden and menacing, it’s also really funny, peppered with whip-smart, biting Irish humour.
It all gets a bit manic at the end, as the chaos ramps up. White maintains a breathless pace, and we just about stay with the main character, with all his self-defeating bravado. “I didn’t choose where I come from,” says one character. “But I can choose how I get out of it.”
A blisteringly vivid, raw drama – I couldn’t put it down. One of the most thrilling Irish debuts of 2026.
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