For fans of Don Winslow, Steve Cavanagh, Michael Connelly, John Sandford and Richard Price.

Book 1: Rat Island (July 2021)

A New York Post Book of the Week. 

A raw, dark and morally complex novel which presents a searing portrait of mid-1990s New York.

A non-stop thrill ride filled with intruge, action and suspense. – Gerald Posner

John Steele writes with grit, pace, and authenticity. – Claire McGowan

A real contender for crime book of the year. – David Peace

After Rat Island, I’ll be reading John Steele from now on. You should too! –  Garth Ennis

John Steele writes with grit, pace, and authenticity – fans of Don Winslow will love this. – Claire Mc Gowan

Rat Island builds on the great promise of Ravenhill and the Jackie Shaw series, and then some, going toe-to-toe with your Winslows and McKintys to give us a real contender for Crime Book of the Year. — David Peace

John Steele’s Rat Island is a nonstop thrill ride through the little known world of Triads and Chinese gangsters. The crime bosses in Rat Island rival at every stage the power and evil of South American cocaine cartels. But in Steele’s lyrical storytelling they are much more than simply another tale of mob bosses stashing away huge profits with a growing criminal empire. The Hong Kong Triad bosses, their American Chinatown counterparts, and a group of hardened Irish criminals, mix seamlessly with an addictive cast of characters from the Hong Kong and New York police and the DEA. ‘Rat Island’ is a super read filled with plenty of intrigue, action and suspense and sent against an exotic and seldom explored corner of crime fiction.— Gerald Posner

Rat Island speeds and thrashes with the dangerous energy of the Manhattan streets which are so vividly recalled. John Steele is the undisputed champion of the modern metropolitan thriller. — Gary Donnelly

Rat Island never lets up for a moment in its relentless depiction of its violent but viscerally authentic world. — Irish Independent

‘This is Steele’s fourth novel and one that should make him – if he isn’t already – a stablemate of the likes of Michael Connelly. Intricate plotting, characters making questionable moral choices, gut-wrenching action and a momentum that never flags all make for a work that takes a pneumatic drill to the fragile veneer of respectability that disguises modern, urban life.’ — South China Morning Post

New York, 1995.

Cop Callum Burke arrives in New York from Hong Kong, drafted in as part of an international investigation into organised crime.

With the handover of Hong Kong to China only a couple of years away, gangsters are moving their operations out of the territory and into New York ahead of the looming deadline.

Burke’s experiences with East Asian crime and the Triads’ links to the Irish Mob make him the perfect man to send in undercover. But as he infiltrates these vast and lethal criminal networks, bodies start to pile up in his wake and his conscience threatens to send him over the edge. And when Burke’s NYPD handlers push him to continue the investigation at all costs, he may have to cross the line from cop to criminal just to stay alive….

Book 2: The Sky Turned Black (June 2022)

His biggest case yet. But it could be his last…

NYPD officer Callum Burke is on a routine drugs raid when he bursts in on a scene of monstrous horror – and two killers about to get away.

The men are caught but they won’t talk. All the cops learn is that they’re Russian and extremely dangerous which means this could be the start of a savage new gang war.

Callum Burke is assigned to the investigation. It’s Manhattan in 1997 and the city is being cleared up. The pressure is on.

But when Callum discovers there might be more to the Russian involvement than just criminal gangs, he finds himself in deeper trouble than he’s ever known…

Rat Island