Jack Taylor has finally escaped the despair of his violent life in Galway in favor of a quiet retirement in the country with his friend Keefer, a former Rolling Stones roadie, and a falcon named Maeve. But on a day trip back into the city to sort out his affairs, Jack is hit by a truck in front of Galway’s Famine Memorial, left in a coma but mysteriously without a scratch on him.
When he awakens weeks later, he finds Ireland in a frenzy over the so-called “Miracle of Galway.” People have become convinced that the two children spotted tending to him are saintly, and the site of the accident sacred. The Catholic Church isn’t so sure, and Jack is commissioned to help find the children to verify the miracle or expose the stunt.
But Jack isn’t the only one looking for these children. A fraudulent order of nuns needs them to legitimatize its sanctity and becomes involved with a dangerous arsonist. Soon, the building in which the children are living burns down. Jack returns to his old tricks, and his old demons, as his quest becomes personal.
Sharp and sardonic as ever, “the Godfather of the modern Irish crime novel” (Irish Independent) is at his brutal and ceaselessly suspenseful best in A Galway Epiphany.
“Another heady Irish stew spiked with wayward epigrams, one-word paragraphs, and lots and lots of Jamesons. Sláinte.”—Kirkus Reviews
“The addictive pleasure is Ken Bruen’s immaculate, rhythmic prose, his impeccable timing, his adroit exploitation of current events and outrage that fixes his tale in a particular moment. Apparently even without even breathing hard, Bruen does what Hemingway hoped for but was only occasionally able to achieve and then really only in the short stories.”—Reviewing the Evidence, on Galway Girl
“Just as Ireland—the home of my ancestors—has captured my heart, so have Irish writers, and top among them is Ken Bruen . . . Do not miss Galway Girl, a novel that shows Ken Bruen’s writing at its finest and Jack Taylor’s life at its gruffest.”—Criminal Element, on Galway Girl
“They don’t come much tougher than Ken Bruen’s Irish roughneck, Jack Taylor, a man with bad habits who does good despite himself.”―Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review, on In the Galway Silence
“[Bruen] writes short, rat-a-tat sentences that suggest a meeting of Samuel Beckett and Ogden Nash.”―Chicago Tribune, on The Ghosts of Galway
“No one writes crime novels quite like Ken Bruen . . . I picture Bruen not so much writing as transcribing the words of a sweet fallen angel that are whispered feverishly into his ear.”―Bookreporter, on The Emerald Lie
“Taylor is a classic figure: an ex-cop turned seedy private eye . . . The book’s pleasure comes from listening to Taylor’s eloquent rants, studded with references to songs and books. His voice is wry and bittersweet, but somehow always hopeful.”―Seattle Times, on Green Hell
“[Jack Taylor] has a gift for blarney, for plain speaking, for poetic melancholy, for downing shots of Jameson’s without ice, and for pregnant one-word paragraphs. . .. A tough, tender, sorrowful tour of the Bruen aquarium, with all manner of fantastic creatures swimming in close proximity and touching only the fellow creatures they want to devour. Just don’t get too attached to the supporting cast or read this installment just before a trip to Galway.”—Kirkus Reviews, on In the Galway Silence
“Powered by nonstop action and acerbic wit, [In the Galway Silence] is—like the pints of Guinness that the saga’s existentially tortured, pill-popping antihero consumes on a daily basis—unfathomably dark. [Jack Taylor is] a deeply flawed but endearing character whose suffering is both tragic and transformative.” —Publishers Weekly, on In the Galway Silence
“Nobody writes like Ken Bruen, with his ear for lilting Irish prose and his taste for the kind of gallows humor heard only at the foot of the gallows. The Emerald Lie is pure Bruen, with its verbal tics, weird typography and unorthodox wordplay.”—New York Times Book Review, on The Emerald Lie
“Bruen’s voice is unmistakable: finely chiseled paragraphs that more closely resemble verse than prose . . . Bleaker than David Goodis, colder than Derek Raymond, and funnier and more violent than Richard Stark, Ken Bruen is among the most original and innovative noir voices of the last two decades.”—Los Angeles Review of Books, on Headstone
“Bruen gets more done in a paragraph, a word, even a fragment of a word, than most writers get in an entire four-hundred-page doorstop. If his prose was any sharper, your eyeballs would bleed.”—Mystery Scene, on Green Hell
“The Godfather of the modern Irish crime novel.”—Irish Independent, on Green Hell
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