BookBrowse Reviews All Them Dogs by Djamel White

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After five years hiding out in England, Tony Ward reintegrates himself into the Dublin gang scene with a score to settle.

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Tony Ward is back in Dublin. Having laid low in England for five years like he was instructed to do after murdering a rival gang member, Tony returns to his hometown ready to integrate himself back into the organized crime scene. But since he's been gone, everything has changed. Tony's boss and mentor, Philly Mooney, has been killed, and his partner in crime, Kenny, has had a kid and straightened his life out. But Kenny introduces Tony to notorious crime boss Aengus Lavelle, who soon has Tony working alongside his stepson and enforcer, Darren "Flute" Walsh. The two drive around Dublin council estates, flashing a gun and intimidating clients into paying their debts.

Tony knew Flute back in school, as a quiet kid in his older brother's year, but never paid him much attention. But now Tony finds himself drawn to Flute; finds himself watching him when they're alone together, feeling things he hasn't felt for another man since his old boss, Philly—but with Philly, it hadn't been reciprocated. With Flute, there's a kind of danger for Tony in imagining new beginnings in a line of work where tomorrow is never promised.

But even as Tony grows closer to Flute, his past is never far behind. Tony tries to keep a low profile, but he knows that word is getting around that he's back in town, and the family of the man he killed is out for revenge. At the same time, Tony has a score to settle with whoever killed Philly. As Tony's past and present start to collide, All Them Dogs hurtles at breakneck speed toward a thrilling, violent, tragic conclusion.

Debut author Djamel White unceremoniously drops us into Tony's gritty and violent world, littering the narration with working class Irish slang that lends a sense of authenticity to his voice. But along with all the brutality and the bloodshed that he recounts, there's a tenderness to Tony's narration, especially in his descriptions of men, which are reverent bordering on erotic—but Tony, repressed in his sexuality, is unable to label his desire as what it is.

"Philly with his red hair and his green eyes and the way he smiled with all that pride as he pulled on his smokes and took the money off us with the other hand. Taking our word on how much was there. Smiling and winking at me like there was something worthwhile under the skin and the muscle and the sinew."

The specter of Philly haunts the novel. Larger than life, Philly is a sharp contrast to the quiet, unreadable Flute, but both of them are confident and assured in a way that attracts Tony, who grew up without a father and fixates on ideals of masculinity that he tries to embody. (His brother, Archie, a scholarly type who never got involved in the gang scene, is a source of aggravation and embarrassment for Tony.)

Tony's relationship with Flute serves as the emotional core of a novel that unfolds into a fast-paced, twisting story of revenge, where revelations are ultimately uncovered that will shake the very foundation of Tony's world.

All Them Dogs is a haunting, unforgettable first novel. It's a grim tale, but not a humorless one—with characteristic Irish wit, Djamel White tempers his bleak and hopeless landscape with moments of dark humor; the dialogue between gangsters is lively and at times laugh-out-loud funny. It's just enough for the reader to understand what keeps Tony in the thrall of Dublin's underground crime world—there's a kind of perverse magic to this community that runs on honor and loyalty, that has its own vocabulary and excuses itself from the mores of the outside world. The effect almost distracts the reader into complacency, but not entirely; it's clear that the cycle of violence that governs this world needs to be broken, and we wonder alongside Tony whether this is possible—knowing, all the same, that it probably isn't.

This review first ran in the May 20, 2026 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.