Dan Starkey

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.…

Journalist Dan Starkey has signed on to cover the heavyweight title fight between the Irish national champion, Fat Boy McMaster, and Iron Mike Tyson, in New York City. Starkey is hoping for a fat paycheck and a quiet holiday, but when the stakes are this high, the Big Apple has more to dish out. As Starkey's quiet holiday crumbles, his chronicle morphs into a quick-paced thriller complete with kidnappings, inner-city commando operations, and an elaborately sinister whale-watching cruise - none of which is enough to stem the flow of Starkey’s crackling repartee.

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 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.

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, he might not have found himself agreeing to go on honeymoon...with Big Davie.

They say moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do. Well, as far as Dan Starkey's concerned, "they" can stick it where the sun don't shine because right now helping his wife with the unpacking is the least of his worries. No sooner than Dan has moved into his new Belfast home, his best mate, Mouse, is murdered, leaving him to catch a killer, become editor of the obscenely successful scandal magazine, "Belfast Confidential", and compile the much-coveted Power List.

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?

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.