I got shortlisted for an Edgar, won a couple of awards, and so then that set me on that path for the next six years of reluctantly, kind of being dragged into writing about Northern Ireland in the 1980s".

[8] He also began working as a writer and reviewer for a number of publications including The Guardian,[9] The Sydney Morning Herald,[10] The Washington Post,[11] The Independent,[12] The Australian,[13] The Irish Times[14] and Harpers.

[15] McKinty quit writing in 2017 after being evicted from his rented house, citing a lack of income from his novels, and instead took work as an Uber driver and a bartender.

[16] Upon hearing of his situation, fellow crime author Don Winslow passed some of his books to his agent, the screenwriter and producer Shane Salerno.

[18] Patrick Anderson of the Washington Post has praised McKinty as a leading light of the "new wave" of Irish crime novelists along with Ken Bruen, Declan Hughes and John Connolly.

Liam McIlvanney, writing in the Irish Times, singled out McKinty's lyrical prose style as the defining characteristic of the Duffy series.

[23] However, in reviewing McKinty's Fifty Grand in The Guardian,[24] John O'Connor called him a "master craftsman of violence and redemption, up there with the likes of Dennis Lehane.

[28] In 2016, The Guardian included book 5 of the Sean Duffy series, Rain Dogs, about the investigation of a death at Carrickfergus Castle, in their "The best recent thrillers" coverage.