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-- The Devil Alchohic. Coke fiend. Pill popper. Angry. Bitter. A limp. Scarred. Broken. Battered, tattered and tortured. A man of few joys but many great sorrows. Loyal to a fault. And as Irish as a pint of the black.
Not that alcoholic P.I.s are particularly original, but somehow Bruen manages to not only make the many cliches of the genre come alive but blow them out of the fucking water in The Guards (2001), Taylor's astounding and audacious debut. They're all here, too: the beautiful client who may be hiding something, the brooding tough but tender P.I. who seeks solace in booze and books and drugs, the missing daughter, the mordant wisecracks, etc. And that was just the beginning of what's become one of the most singular voices in detective fiction. The fact is that, stereotypes or not, envelope pushing or not, Jack's simply a great character, an often self-pitying, obnoxious drunk overly impressed with his own wit who's often way out of his league, and not above using some very questionable methods. He's not even that good a detective, it turns out. A veritable flood of literary quotations and music trivia spewing from his mouth, he bumbles around, often doing more harm than good, despite his best efforts, as he works the case, not always sure what he's doing. And Jack's harsh, bleek Galway is a far cry from the over-romanticized pastoral paradise described in song every March by a bunch of weepy-eyed fools in green plastic bowler hats in pre-fab and swilling green beer in "Irish" pubs all across North America. The Taylor books are full of tricky punctuation and a plethora of quotations and digressions that in the hands of a lesser writer would sink them, but Bruen manages to pull it off every damn time, with solid storytelling and spot-on characterization, razor sharp prose that cuts through the fat and reveals the meat (and heart) underneath. According to the Tangled Web, "Ken Bruen hails from the west of Ireland and lives in south London. His past includes drunken brawls in Vietnam, a stretch of four months in a South American gaol, a PhD in metaphysics and three of the most acclaimed crime novels of the '90s: Rilke on Black, The Hackman Blues and Her Last Call To Louis McNeice. He was a finalist for the First Blood award for Best First Crime Novel of '95 (for Rilke on Black) and was a front runner in the Big Issue's 'alternative' Booker shortlist." In 2010, TV3 in Ireland aired The Guards, starring a suitably rough-hewn Iain Glen as Taylor, which served as a pilot for what's intended to be a series of television movies based on Bruen's novels and characters. It proved successful enough that so far two more, The Magdalen Martyrs and The Pikemen have been ordered. All I know is that you better keep your eye on Bruen. He's not a contender; he's a champ. If you see 'em, say hello. And buy him a drink. UNDER OATH
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Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Pictured is Iain glen as Taylor. | Home | Detectives A-L M-Z | Film | Radio | Television | Web Comics | Comics | FAQs | Drop a dime. Your comments, suggestions, corrections and contributions are always welcome.
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