McNamee commenced writing another series for children, the first book of which is The Ring of Five, and the second of which is The Unknown Spy, both of which are based on plotting and espionage.
He has also written a series under the pseudonym John Creed:[5] These feature the character of intelligence officer Jack Valentine.
[6] Fellow crime writer Liam McIlvanney described his writing as having the "cadenced majesty of McCarthy or DeLillo, but the vision it enacts is all his own".
[7] Mark Lawson described his work as having "a distinctive prose tone, its signature the omission, for purposes of staccato rhythm, of verbs".
In 2002, writing as John Creed he won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award for The Sirius Crossing.