Having been to Ireland and driven through Galway, I take particular interest in Ken Bruen’s novels featuring Jack Taylor, a Galway private investigator in a town that doesn’t really have any gumshoes. What the town does have is a seedy underbelly, one which Taylor knows very well. In The Magdalen Martyrs, Taylor is “hired” by crime boss Bill Cassell to find an old Magdalen woman. He’s also hired by the son of a dead man who thinks his stepmother killed his father. Taylor responds by sleeping with her. Finally, Taylor cleans up his act and learns the truth about both the old women he was hired to find and the younger women he has befriended. Let’s just say that the ending is typical Bruen. If you haven’t read him before, you likely won’t see this one coming. If you’ve read the 10 previous books by Bruen, you’ll just shake your head as you close the book. In The Magdalen Martyrs, the master urban storyteller has done it again and it’s a joy to read.
Posts Tagged Galway
After having my first taste of Jack Taylor in The Guards, I was ready for some more from Ken Bruen. And thus came The Killing of the Tinkers, where Taylor reads voraciously and he actually talks about two of my favorite authors, Lawrence Block and George Pelecanos. Which makes sense, since similar to Block’s Matt Scudder character, Taylor is a drunk former cop turned detective with some shady friends. And similar to Pelacanos, Bruen has a film noir writing style that perfectly captures the hip local underground in the place in which he lives, including the drugs that often exist but are rarely written about in mainstream fiction. As I mentioned before, Bruen is an acquired taste. Pelecanos, T. Jefferson Parker and Mark Billingham sing his praises so I know I am in good company as I enjoy the ride. Which, basically is a mystery which involves a social worker and some gypsies. And includes some vicious violence to go along with drunken debauchery. Enough said.
Ken Bruen 7: The Guards
Jan 17
Just like beer, Ken Bruen is an acquired taste. My first exposure to Bruen was in The White Trilogy, which featured British detective Brant in three novels: A White Arrest; Taming the Alien; and The McDead. Irish detective Jack Taylor is the focus of this book. A former member of the Irish Guards militia, Taylor takes shit the entire book since there aren’t really any private eyes in Ireland. He also has major issues with alcohol and hangs around with some shady characters, which is your standard detective fare. What isn’t standard, is the prose of Bruen. Not only are you hit with the Queen’s English, but Bruen has a unique writing style in which he sometimes uses poetry. In the middle of a paragraph. Or he makes a list and puts it in the form of poetry. Similar to your first sip of beer, at the start of the novel, you are a little skeptical. But as you continue to read, it starts to make sense. And you find yourself enjoying his quirky style. Not to mention his characters. Bruen is compared to Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos for this reason. Taylor and his criminal friend, Sutton, are both a dichotomy between good and bad, normal and abnormal. And just like Pelecanos, Bruen is a mix between detective fiction and book noir. A literary cocktail worth trying.