Dark Green

This study surveys Irish crime fiction across three centuries, starting with the picaresque tradition of the 1600s and running to the late 1990s, when the "Emerald Noir" wave took shape. Its central claim is that Irish writers helped shape the genre internationally, yet have seldom received the credit that role deserves.

Authors such as Le Fanu, Meade, Childers and Wills Crofts receive particular attention, since their experiments produced many techniques that later became standard in crime writing. The book treats the field broadly, covering everything from the detective mystery to the spy thriller. It also argues that crime writing deserves a place within Irish Studies.

The chronology moves from the picaresque, an early Irish adoption of a form that went on to echo across Europe, through the Gothic and the early detective tale, to the Irish part in the Golden Age mystery. It then takes in Irish hard-boiled pulp and inner-city police procedurals, in which Irish criminals are pursued by Irish detectives.