Pints of 'Gansett Make You Strong | A Mike Fionn Novel, by Thom Dunn
Biracial/bisexual punk rocker Mike Fionn was raised beneath the streets of Boston, in a hidden community of immigrant Irish faeries. Now he (barely) makes a living as a private eye serving faeries, immigrants, and poor townies like Margie Walsh, a single mom and recovering addict from Southie. Margie begs Mike to find her son, who she believes was kidnapped by leprechauns and replaced with a stick, just like in the old Irish wives' tales. She can't pay more than the cash in her pocket, but Mike takes the job because it's the right thing to do. And 'cause any cash will help settle his bar tab.
Mike scours the streets of Boston in search of the missing kid, armed with nothing but a fixed gear bike, a magical shillelagh, and a righteous streak of rage (plus an occasional assist from a supernatural riot grrl named Robin). Along the way, he encounters Armenian gangsters, blue collar mer-people, ghostly sex workers, a Harvard-educated doctor with a questionable past, and other everyday inhabitants of this modern Boston.
But Mike soon discovers that the missing kid is just one small part of a vast criminal empire run by mythological Irish creatures, stealing human souls to get high — and that it all ties back to his own dead father's IRA past.
Pints of 'Gansett Make You Strong
Pints of 'Gansett Make You Strong is an 80,000-word urban fantasy novel that’s equal parts American Gods, Gone, Baby, Gone, and a Pogues song. I like to think of it as a supernatural Irish Boston punk rock noir. Also, all the chapters are inspired by punk songs, as you can see from the playlist below.
Here's a brief synopsis:
Biracial/bisexual punk rocker Mike Fionn was raised beneath the streets of Boston, in a hidden community of immigrant Irish faeries. Now he (barely) makes a living as a private eye serving faeries, immigrants, and poor townies like Margie Walsh, a single mom and recovering addict from Southie. Margie begs Mike to find her son, who she believes was kidnapped by leprechauns and replaced with a stick, just like in the old Irish wives' tales. She can't pay more than the cash in her pocket, but Mike takes the job because it's the right thing to do. And 'cause any cash will help settle his bar tab.
Mike scours the streets of Boston in search of the missing kid, armed with nothing but a fixed gear bike, a magical shillelagh, and a righteous streak of rage (plus an occasional assist from a supernatural riot grrl named Robin). Along the way, he encounters Armenian gangsters, blue collar mer-people, ghostly trans sex workers, a Harvard-educated doctor with a questionable past, and other everyday inhabitants of this modern Boston.
But Mike soon discovers that the missing kid is just one small part of a vast criminal empire run by mythological Irish creatures, stealing human souls to get high — and that it all ties back to his own dead father's IRA past.
Pints of ‘Gansett Make You Strong marries a deep love for noir tropes and Irish mythology and language, using them to explore the struggles of legacies and class in the racially, economically, and sexually diverse modern-day Boston that I know and love. It's also a bit of an homage to the struggling Irish language, and the punk rock songs that I grew up with. While the book stands on its own as a complete story, I hope to make it part of a larger series of Mike Fionn mysteries.
You can read 25 sample pages below; or, if you’d prefer, you can check out the first 3 chapters.
If this sounds like something you might be interested, please email me for more sample chapters, a more detailed synopsis, or a full manuscript.