Go, Ken Bruen, Go! 

Jack Taylor’s Misadventures Make for 
Drop Dead Reading Enjoyment

By Martin Russell
Irish American Post book editor

For a punch in the literary mouth, you can’t go wrong with Ken Bruen’s The Guards and The Killing of the Tinkers, two from the Irish author’s top- selling Jack Taylor series. Both novels are now making the rounds of Stateside bookstores, after knocking mystery fans dead to rights in the Auld Sod and elsewhere throughout the worldwide Celtic diaspora. Now, Bruen’s writings are finally make an impressive run for a wider readership.

Each book -- my first forays into Bruen’s quirky, chopped-up world of the new Ireland -- are excellent introductions to an author whose hero is usually more derelict than detective. His Taylor character, an ex-Garda (Irish policeman), is a private detective -- albeit not that the Irish would ever refer to him as such. They still harbor an age-old grudge against informers and secret police, a dark understirring left from their colonial days. 

Subsequently, hero Taylor is a self-described "finder." And the poor wretch finds murder and mayhem everywhere he stumbles. He can’t even enjoy a good drunk without someone knocking on his door with a plea for help. Whether good-looking woman distraught over her missing daughter or a tinker clan chief whose people are being murdered...you name ‘em and they come looking for a fixer on the far side of the law, one who can swim in shadow. 

However, Bruen always makes sure that Taylor also finds himself, even as he flounders amid the chaos of his own life. The former cop, ala television’s Lt. Colombo on the ropes, must continually deal with his own interior demons while on the trail of miscreants of all brogues, sexes and Irish social status. Regularly lost in "the drink," Taylor needs to pull his mind and body out of his personal misfortunes in order to save others. And Bruen’s backdoor hero does just, with more or less regularity and with plenty of faltering before the final can’t-stop-reading pages. 

But that’s okay. This is also Bruen’s reality, honed from his own bizarre adventures around the world...including having his head dumped into a bucket of excrement and being assaulted in a Rio jail. Besides, Bruen’s one-two punch writing style is the perfect form for a reader just discovering Taylor. 

We may not like our hero all the time, but you can grow to respect him as he faces up to the task that always seems at hand...even if the hand is a fist, holding a knife or brandishing a gun. Bruen’s man is as human a main character as any you’ll ever read. 

If asked for casting suggestions, I can see Mickey Rourke, or a more dissipated, older Sean Penn, play a filmic Taylor role. 

There’s a quite a bit of humor mixed in with the Gaelic grunge, providing plenty of leavening within these tales of tribulation. Thank heavens for Bruen’s latent, yet twinkling, Irish eye. 

The author was born in Galway in 1951, spending his 20s roaming the world as an English teacher. Five of his books have been published by The Do-Not Press (A White Arrest, 1998; Taming the Alien, 1999; The McDead, 2000; London Boulevard, 2001; Blitz, 2002; and Vixen, 2003) A film of the novel Her Last Call To Louis MacNeice is currently in production and his White Trilogy (A White Arrest, Taming The Alien and The McDead ) has been purchased for television by Deep Indigo Productions. His Jack Taylor series, which may eventually reach five novels, is published by Brandon, a leading Irish independent publishing house.
 
 

Bruen lives in Galway with his wife, Phyllis, and daughter, Grace, in addition to spending some time in Tucson, Ariz.