Thrilling new Paul Williams book 'Crooks' explores criminal world

In his new book CROOKS, veteran crime journalist Paul Williams takes readers on a thrilling ride through the underbelly of Ireland’s criminal world, starting with a wild moment that nearly ended his career before it even began.

At just 19, Ballinamore native Williams had landed his first job at the Leitrim Observer — and it didn’t take long before he found himself on the front lines of rural crime.

“I was staring down the two long, shiny barrels of an old shotgun pointing straight at me on windswept Sliabh an Iarainn mountain,” Williams remembers, describing the heart-stopping encounter with John Bernard Keaney.

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Keaney, a tough-as-nails veteran of the Irish War of Independence, had just been robbed by thieves and wasn’t in the mood for visitors. “I shot Black and Tans with this and I’ll do the same to you, ya tinker,” he warned Williams. “As I stood frozen, I could hear Willie Donnellan’s car starting up as if he was about to leave.”

He and Willie, his photographer friend, spent hours racing along the boreen backroads to interview the growing number of victims. “We’d turn up to interview victims, and it was like something out of a Western—everyone was nervous, watching their backs, and you could just feel the tension in the air,” Williams remembers.

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The stories they uncovered were grim. “It involved gangs, mostly from the Travelling community, who began specialising in targeting the most vulnerable people in society—elderly folk living in isolated areas in the north-west of rural Ireland,” he recalls.

The fear was palpable, and this was where Williams first witnessed the injustice of crime. “I grew up in a peaceful rural community where doors were never locked and everyone knew each other. Seeing people—especially the elderly—scared to leave their homes was something I couldn’t get used to.”

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“The fear in their faces, especially people like my granny Ellie, was haunting,” he adds. “They’d lived through wars and hardship, only to be terrorized in their old age.” For him, it was personal.

Over the next 40 years, he would go on to chronicle the violence, tragedy, and sometimes surprising acts of bravery that would define his path as one of Ireland’s most well-known crime reporters.

In CROOKS, he shares stories from his most dangerous investigations, from confronting notorious criminals to infiltrating powerful gangs like the Kinahan cartel. The book offers a gripping look at how crime evolved in Ireland, told through Williams' own experiences and the powerful stories of those he met along the way.

Williams recalls one of the darkest moments of his career when he witnessed the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, shot in her car. “She was wearing the same outfit I had seen her wear when we spoke at RTÉ just a week before. I was physically sick,” he says. When asked if the encounter made him reconsider his career, he replied, “No, it made me twenty times worse.”

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From pursuing the General to receiving death threats from PJ ‘The Psycho’ Judge, exposing the Westies, and infiltrating the Kinahan cartel, Paul’s extraordinary career serves as a firsthand account of the rise of organized crime in Ireland. And for Williams, it all began with those long drives down backroads, chasing a story—and dodging danger—often just barely staying ahead of it.