Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beware the Solitary Drinker | 2002 | Con Lehane | Buy |
| 2 | What Goes Around Comes Around | 2005 | Con Lehane | Buy |
| 3 | Death at the Old Hotel | 2007 | Con Lehane | Buy |
The Brian McNulty series follows a veteran bartender at Oscar’s, a bar on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, who has a habit of getting mixed up in murder. McNulty respects his customers’ privacy, but when violence touches the people around him, he finds himself digging into lives both rich and poor and uncovering things that were hidden for good reason. A dedicated union man with leftist politics, McNulty brings a working-class perspective that sets these books apart from typical amateur sleuth stories.
Con Lehane drew on more than a decade of his own bartending experience to create this series, and that background gives the books an authenticity that reviewers have noted and praised. Fans of Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder novels will find a similar hardboiled New York atmosphere here, though McNulty has his own distinct voice and moral compass.