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Primed: A transatlantic revenge thriller
Gary Lawlor is PRIMED
His life ended the day a bomb killed his two young sons. For twenty years, he's lived in the wreckage—a former detective turned cybersecurity officer, haunted by the certainty that IRA bomber Rab Harper murdered his children.
Then a photograph arrives. Harper is alive. In California.
Lawlor slips away from Belfast without a trace, drawn across an ocean and a continent by the promise of revenge. But in the sun-bleached sprawl of Los Angeles, nothing is what it seems. And as bodies pile up from Santa Monica to the Malibu Mountains, Lawlor discovers the real conspiracy runs deeper than he imagined—back to the corridors of power in Belfast and Washington, D.C.
Because the bomb that killed his sons wasn't meant for them. It was meant for him. And the man who gave the order has been hiding in plain sight for two decades.
Racing between betrayals past and present, hunted by gangsters and government fixers alike, Lawlor must untangle a web of corruption that stretches from child exploitation networks to presidential politics. His only allies are a traumatized widow seeking her own justice and a woman who knows too much about everyone's secrets.
PRIMED is a searing thriller about the corrosive cost of revenge, the institutions that protect predators, and the impossible choice between justice and survival. Perfect for readers who appreciate morally complex characters, intricate plotting, and thrillers that pull no punches about power, corruption, and the things we do to protect the people we love—or the memory of those we've lost.
Fans of Mick Herron, John le Carré, and Tana French will find a new obsession in this explosive transatlantic thriller.
His life ended the day a bomb killed his two young sons. For twenty years, he's lived in the wreckage—a former detective turned cybersecurity officer, haunted by the certainty that IRA bomber Rab Harper murdered his children.
Then a photograph arrives. Harper is alive. In California.
Lawlor slips away from Belfast without a trace, drawn across an ocean and a continent by the promise of revenge. But in the sun-bleached sprawl of Los Angeles, nothing is what it seems. And as bodies pile up from Santa Monica to the Malibu Mountains, Lawlor discovers the real conspiracy runs deeper than he imagined—back to the corridors of power in Belfast and Washington, D.C.
Because the bomb that killed his sons wasn't meant for them. It was meant for him. And the man who gave the order has been hiding in plain sight for two decades.
Racing between betrayals past and present, hunted by gangsters and government fixers alike, Lawlor must untangle a web of corruption that stretches from child exploitation networks to presidential politics. His only allies are a traumatized widow seeking her own justice and a woman who knows too much about everyone's secrets.
PRIMED is a searing thriller about the corrosive cost of revenge, the institutions that protect predators, and the impossible choice between justice and survival. Perfect for readers who appreciate morally complex characters, intricate plotting, and thrillers that pull no punches about power, corruption, and the things we do to protect the people we love—or the memory of those we've lost.
Fans of Mick Herron, John le Carré, and Tana French will find a new obsession in this explosive transatlantic thriller.
354 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 8, 2025
About the author
Paddy Hirsch
9 books80 followersPaddy Hirsch is an author and Murrow award-winning journalist. His first novel is The Devil's Half Mile, an historical thriller with a financial twist, set in New York in 1799.
He is the author of Man vs Markets; Economics Explained, Plain and Simple. Publisher's Weekly called the book " “A straightforward, accessible, and often hilarious overview of our financial and economic systems, products, and concepts."
He works as a supervising editor at NPR's planet Money. He is also the creator and host of Marketplace Whiteboard, an award-winning video explainer of financial and economic terms.
He is the author of Man vs Markets; Economics Explained, Plain and Simple. Publisher's Weekly called the book " “A straightforward, accessible, and often hilarious overview of our financial and economic systems, products, and concepts."
He works as a supervising editor at NPR's planet Money. He is also the creator and host of Marketplace Whiteboard, an award-winning video explainer of financial and economic terms.
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