All Them Dogs by Djamel White

I read this debut novel because it was recently longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize. The author is young, Irish, and interestingly, owns a tattoo business of some renown. This is a very gritty novel, which mixes toxic masculinity and a life of crime together and I wondered if tattoo artists hear a lot of stories that maybe other professions have less exposure to. In any case, this is violent and troubled, too much of both for my taste, but it is well paced and well written. On the run for five years after killing a man in a gang fight, Tony Ward has returned to west Dublin under the protection of a local crime boss. Teamed up with tall and sullen enforcer Flute Walsh, Tony is back on his home turf grafting a grim routine of collecting debts and drug dealer’s dues. Propelled through a world of old scores and hard knocks, our protagonist is a shark who has to keep moving simply to survive. But when he and Flute are called upon to kill a failing dealer, their brutal conspiracy becomes a visceral dance of desire and betrayal. Maybe part of my discomfort is connected with the overlap between these two poles of brutality and sexuality, but in the end, while I learned something, I liked but did not love this.