Tana French Dominates New York Times Best Thriller Lists as Dublin Author Claims Most Prolific Spot
Dublin-based crime writer Tana French has been named the most prolific author on the New York Times' landmark lists of the best thrillers of the 21st century, with four of her novels appearing on the expert panel's top 50 and nine on the readers' expanded list of 100 — a dominance that places her alongside Cormac McCarthy, Gillian Flynn, and John le Carré as one of the defining crime writers of the modern era.
Background
Tana French is, by any measure, one of the most significant crime writers working in the English language today. Born in Vermont to an Irish father and raised across several countries before settling in Dublin, she published her debut novel, In the Woods, in 2007 to immediate critical acclaim. The book, which introduced the Dublin Murder Squad and its complex, morally ambiguous detectives, won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and established French as a writer of exceptional psychological depth and atmospheric power.
In the nearly two decades since, French has published eight further novels, including the remaining Dublin Murder Squad books and, most recently, the Cal Hooper trilogy set in the fictional west of Ireland village of Ardnakelty. The final instalment of that trilogy, The Keeper, was published in March 2026 to widespread acclaim and has been a consistent presence on the New York Times bestseller list since its release. French's work is notable not just for its plotting — which is meticulous and inventive — but for its prose, which operates at a level of literary ambition rarely found in genre fiction.
The New York Times lists, compiled through a combination of expert panel voting and reader polling, represent the most comprehensive attempt yet to map the landscape of 21st-century thriller writing. The expert panel comprised 291 editors, librarians, booksellers, and crime authors, while the reader poll attracted hundreds of thousands of votes from across the world. The resulting lists are not definitive — no such list could be — but they carry significant cultural weight and are likely to drive substantial sales for the authors featured.
Key Developments
French's performance on both lists is extraordinary. Four novels on the expert top 50 — In the Woods (third), The Likeness, Faithful Place, and The Witch Elm — places her ahead of every other author on the list in terms of representation. On the readers' list of 100, nine of her novels appear, a figure that reflects the depth of her readership and the loyalty it inspires. No other author comes close to matching that tally on either list.
The ranking of In the Woods as the third-best thriller of the century by the expert panel is particularly striking. The novel, which follows Dublin Murder Squad detective Rob Ryan as he investigates a murder in the same woods where he was the sole survivor of a childhood incident he cannot remember, is a book that operates simultaneously as a police procedural, a psychological study, and a meditation on memory and loss. Its ending — which French has always refused to explain or apologise for — remains one of the most debated conclusions in modern crime fiction.
French, who was reached for comment by the Irish Times, described the recognition as "genuinely overwhelming" and expressed particular pleasure at the reader poll results. "The expert list is wonderful, but the reader list means something different," she said. "Those are the people who stayed up too late reading, who pressed the books on their friends, who wrote to me about what the stories meant to them. That's the thing that matters most."
Why It Matters
French's dominance of these lists is significant not just as a personal achievement but as a statement about the vitality of Irish crime writing more broadly. The Dublin Murder Squad novels, in particular, have done more than any other series to put Irish crime fiction on the international map, demonstrating that the genre can accommodate the full complexity of Irish social and political life — the legacy of the Troubles, the Celtic Tiger and its aftermath, the housing crisis, the changing face of Irish identity — without sacrificing narrative drive or emotional engagement.
Unlike the Republic's approach to literary prestige, which has historically favoured literary fiction over genre writing, the international market has been more willing to recognise the literary merit of French's work. Her inclusion on these lists alongside writers like Cormac McCarthy and Kate Atkinson — authors whose work is firmly in the literary mainstream — suggests that the distinction between "literary" and "genre" fiction is becoming increasingly meaningless, at least in the eyes of readers and critics who actually engage with the work.
Local Impact
In Dublin, where French has lived for most of her adult life, the reaction to the New York Times recognition has been warm. Bookshops across the city have reported a surge in sales of her backlist, and several have created dedicated Tana French displays. The Irish Writers Centre has invited her to participate in a public event in September to discuss the lists and her broader career, and there is growing interest from Irish secondary schools in including her work on the Leaving Certificate curriculum.
What's Next
French has indicated that she is already working on a new novel, though she has declined to provide details about its subject or setting. Given the success of the Cal Hooper trilogy, there has been speculation about whether she might return to that world, but French has always been resistant to the idea of writing to formula. Whatever she produces next, the New York Times recognition ensures that it will arrive with an even larger audience than her previous work.
