This series follows a former police officer navigating the gritty streets of Galway, Ireland, after being dismissed from the force. Now working as a private investigator, he grapples with personal demons, particularly alcoholism, which often complicate his pursuit of justice. Each case plunges him into the heart of the city's underbelly, confronting dangerous criminals and uncovering dark secrets.
In this mesmerizing work of crime fiction, an ex-member of The Guards--Ireland's police force--is approached in a Galway bar by a dazzling woman with a strange request and a rumor about his talent for finding things.
When Jack Taylor blew town at the end of The Guards his alcoholism was a distant memory and sober dreams of a new life in London were shining in his eyes. In the opening pages of The Killing of the Tinkers, Jack's back in Galway a year later with a new leather jacket on his back, a pack of smokes in his pocket, a few grams of coke in his waistband, and a pint of Guinness on his mind. So much for new beginnings.Before long he's sunk into his old patterns, lifting his head from the bar only every few days, appraising his surroundings for mere minutes and then descending deep into the alcoholic, drug-induced fugue he prefers to the real world. But a big gypsy walks into the bar one day during a moment of Jack's clarity and changes all that with a simple request. Jack knows the look in this man's eyes, a look of hopelessness mixed with resolve topped off with a quietly simmering rage; he's seen it in the mirror. Recognizing a kindred soul, Jack agrees to help him, knowing but not admitting that getting involved is going to lead to more bad than good. But in Jack Taylor's world bad and good are part and parcel of the same lost cause, and besides, no one ever accused Jack of having good sense.Ken Bruen wowed critics and readers alike when he introduced Jack Taylor in The Guards; he'll blow them away with The Killing of the Tinkers, a novel of gritty brilliance that cements Bruen's place among the greats of modern crime fiction.
Seems impossible, but Jack Taylor is sober---off booze, pills, powder, and nearly off cigarettes, too. The main reason he's been able to keep clean: his dealer's in jail, which leaves Jack without a source. When that dealer calls him to Dublin and asks a favor in the soiled, sordid visiting room of Mountjoy Prison, Jack wants to tell him to take a flying leap. But he doesn't, can't, because the dealer's sister is dead, and the guards have called it "death by misadventure." The dealer knows that can't be true and begs Jack to have a look, check around, see what he can find out. It's exactly what Jack does, with varying levels of success, to make a living. But he's reluctant, maybe because of who's asking or maybe because of the bad feeling growing in his gut. Never one to give in to bad feelings or common sense, Jack agrees to the favor, though he can't possibly know the shocking, deadly consequences he has set in motion. But he and everyone he holds dear will find out soon, sooner than anyone knows, in The Dramatist, the lean and lethal fourth entry in Ken Bruen's award-winning Jack Taylor series.
Ireland, awash in cash and greed, no longer turns to the Church for solace or comfort. But the decapitation of Father Joyce in a Galway church horrifies even the most jaded citizen. Jack Taylor, devastated by the recent trauma of personal loss, has always believed himself to be beyond salvation. But a new job offers a fresh start, and an unexpected partnership makes him hope that his one desperate vision - of family - might yet be fulfilled. An eerie mix of exorcism, a predatory stalker, and an unlikely attraction conspires to lure him into a murderous web of dark conspiracies. The spectre of a child haunts every waking moment. Bleak, unsettling and totally original, Ken Bruen's writing captures the brooding landscape of Irish society at a time of social and economic upheaval. Here is evidence of an unmistakeable literary talent.
A boy has been crucified in Galway city. People are shocked; the broadsheets debate how the brutal death reflects the state of the nation; the Irish Church is scandalized. No further action is taken. Then the sister of the murdered boy is burned alive and PI Jack Taylor decides to take matters into his own hands. Taylor's investigations take him to old city haunts where he encounters ghosts - living and dead. But what he eventually finds surpasses even his darkest imaginings
When a letter containing a list of victims arrives in the post, PI Jack Taylor is sickened, but tells himself the list has nothing to do with him. But it is not until a child is added to the list that Taylor determines to find the identity of the killer, and stop them at any cost.
America - the land of opportunity, a place where economic prosperity beckons: but not for PI Jack Taylor, who's just been refused entry. Jack resumes his old life in Galway. But when he's called to investigate the frenzied murder of a student, he remembers an encounter with an over-friendly stranger in the airport bar.
Accepting the power of Headstone, Jack realizes that in order to fight back he must relinquish the remaining shreds of what has made him human - knowledge that may have come too late to prevent an act of such ferocious evil that the whole country would be changed forever - and in the worst way.
Someone is scraping the scum off the streets of Galway, and they want Jack Taylor to get involved. A drug pusher, a rapist, a loan shark, all targeted in what look like vigilante attacks. And the killer is writing to Jack, signing their name: C-33. Jack has had enough. He doesnâe(tm)t need the money, and doesnâe(tm)t want to get involved. But when his friend Stewart gets drawn in, it seems he isnâe(tm)t been given a choice. In the meantime, Jack is being courted by Reardon, a charismatic billionaire intent on buying up much of Galway, and begins a tentative relationship with Reardonâe(tm)s PR director, Kelly. Caught between heaven and hell, thereâe(tm)s only one path for Jack Taylor to take: Purgatory.
Taylor has hit rock bottom: one of his best friends is dead, the other has stopped speaking to him; he has given up battling his addiction to alcohol and pills; and his firing from the Irish national police, the Garda, is ancient history. He takes up a vigilante case against a respected professor of literature at the University of Galway who has a violent habit his friends in high places are only too happy to ignore. He rescues Boru Kennedy, a preppy American student, from a couple of thugs. Enter Emerald, an edgy young Goth who could either be the answer to Jack's problems, or the last ripped stitch in his undoing.
The narrative follows vigilante antihero Jack Taylor as he teams up with his new sidekick, Emily, and her endearing dog, Storm. Set against a backdrop of Irish noir, the story revolves around a serial killer whose obsession with bad grammar drives the plot, blending dark humor with suspense. Taylor's character navigates this twisted scenario, offering a fresh take on crime and morality.
'Bruen's spare prose perfectly suits this bleakly mesmerizing tale' Irish Independent .
Former cop Jack Taylor is up against a vigilante assassin who goes by the name 'Silence' - and the consequences quickly become personal.
Ex-cop turned private eye Jack Taylor is on the hunt for a psychotic assassin who has been killing Galway police officers, one by one.