Tim O’Mara Books In Order

Publication Order of Raymond Donne Mystery Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

O’Mara was born in Queens in Flushing, New York. For a long time he has been a teacher as part of the public schools in New York City. Since 1987 he has been specializing in teaching special education in addition to math. Several of the schools that he has taught in are located in Brooklyn in Williamsburg.

He resides in Manhattan, where he teaches. He has in the past hosted as well as worked to produce with others a reading series. This series takes place on a bi-weekly basis and features those reading prose and poetry in the East Village of New York City.

O’Mara is the creator and the writer of the Raymond Donne Mystery series of fictional novels. The debut novel came out in 2012 and is titled Sacrifice Fly. The book introduces readers to the main character of Raymond Donne, a former cop and a school teacher. The book was nominated for a 2013 Barry Award for best first novel.

The second book to come out in the series was Crooked Numbers which was released in October of 2013. This exciting sequel followed up where the debut book left off and kept readers guessing as to what was going to happen. 2015 saw the publication of the third book in the series, Dead Red. This was followed by the fourth novel, Nasty Cutter, and the fifth novel was released in 2019 and is titled The Hook.

Sacrifice Fly is the first novel in the Raymond Donne Mystery series. In this thrilling first story, readers get the chance to meet the main character and step inside his world.

When it comes to his career, Raymond Donne has things going okay for now. He is a school teacher, but that wasn’t always the case. In a former life and career, he was a policeman serving with New York’s finest. As a cop, he would work the beat and walk the streets in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

He also had a personal relationship to the department in the form of his uncle, who was chief of detectives. As he was his nephew, it was always expected of Raymond that he would go out and expand his career. Things were all set to go that way until the accident happened. His knees were now totally destroyed and he felt unhappy with his ability to carry out the job the way that he would expect to.

Not wanting to carry on, Raymond decided to switch jobs. The same neighborhood that he once patrolled, he now teaches in. He did like being a part of the force but with that no longer a viable option for him, he does what he can to move on. Raymond just wants to put those days behind him and accept that things are going to be different now and have changed.

Ray keeps on teaching at the school and things go on as normal. That is, until one of his students and an excellent baseball player disappears from school. It appears that Frankie Rivas has either vanished or decided that going to school isn’t part of his priorities anymore. Ray is concerned because the absence of the student means not only that he could fail but lose out on scholarships too.

Donne decides to look for Frankie, but when he follows up at his apartment, he finds a ghastly scene. Frankie’s father is dead, beaten to death with some type of object. The student and his sibling are nowhere to be seen. It appears that something definitely went down here. The only question is what happened, and who did it, as well as the location of Frankie and his little sister.

The teacher doubts that his student murdered his father, but you never know. If someone else did it, two children missing is a big deal. Since Ray doesn’t have any idea what happened, he’s going to have to look into this if he wants to get them back safe and find out who did this as well. This means a brief return to the world and the people that he left behind so long ago.

Can this teacher track down the two absent kids before it’s too late? Read the gripping first book in the Raymond Donne series to find out!

Crooked Numbers is the second novel in the Raymond Donne Mystery series from author Tim O’Mara. The adventures and the intrigue continue in this extraordinary New York City mystery story.

The events of the first novel may have ended, but Ray quickly finds himself in the middle of a new situation. One of his old students has been discovered under the local Williamsburg Bridge, and he’s dead. Apparently the former student was stabbed at least a dozen times. Now Ray wants to find out the truth about what happened.

Feeling that something is off, Ray decides to try and use his past to his advantage. It just doesn’t make sense. Douglas Lee is the last of his old students that he would expect to end up in this situation. He had a lot going in his favor. He was attending a Manhattan private school on scholarship and getting a fine and exclusive education in the bargain.

Normally a high profile death like this would get plenty of media coverage and attention from the police. But when it’s related to gangs, and this one is believed to be so, everyone backs off. The victim’s mother is not going to rest that easy, however. She requests that Ray himself look into what happened on an unofficial basis.

Ray accepts and tries to get some leads. He’s questioning people and trying to investigate, but it’s slow going. Then one of Douglas’s friends from private school ends up being killed, while another ends up in the hospital. It doesn’t make sense, since they’re all relatively privileged kids that you wouldn’t expect to be involved with or even around this type of violence.

Are the attacks related to the first death? Is the city experiencing a crime surge? It’s up to this former cop to try and find out. Read this book and see what happens in the end!