Fourth Jack Taylor mystery set in Galway, Ireland. Jack is off the drugs and booze and has almost given up the smokes, too. But he feels listless, wandering aimlessly through his days and not feeling very alive even though he is physically quite well. When his friend Cathy says that his old drug dealer, Stewart (now incarcerated—the real reason for Jack’s kicking the coke habit) wants to see him about something, he’s dreading it—but he goes. Stewart wants Jack to look into his younger sister’s death, which was deemed an accident when she slipped down the stairs. But oddly, there was a book tucked beneath her with an inscription from ‘the dramatist’ in it. Other things crop up—Jack’s mother’s ill health, a new lady friend, rumors of a secret vigilante group forming within the guards—and Jack nearly forgets about it until a second girl dies the same way. The book has a heartbreaking ending that I saw coming about halfway through—that didn’t make it any less painful, though! I love Bruen’s work; it’s raw, gritty and honest, and Jack Taylor, with all his maddening foibles, is one of my favorite characters. Despite the ending, I liked this book better than the last one. This series is not for those who prefer cozies and happy-ever-after endings. ( )

Page turner but very sad and depressing. An Irishman kicked off the Garda for drinking and drugs struggles through the entire book while trying to solve the murder of the sister of his former drug supplier. Another girl is murdered and he becomes acquainted with a group of vigilantes, his mother dies in a shabby nursing home, he gets beaten up and now has a permanent limp. Does solve the murders but the book has another shocker in the ending. ( )

Oh my. After reading this installment of the Jack Taylor series, I am hard pressed to figure out how much worse things can get for Jack. I've long said that making Jack Taylor's acquaintance through reading is like watching a train about to wreck on its tracks...you know that something terrible is about to happen, but the reality of how bad it's going to be keeps you watching. But frankly, I wasn't prepared for this one.

As the novel opens, Jack's drug dealer (the very well-dressed, erudite young man) is in prison, put away for six years. He makes it known through Cathy that his sister had been killed and the crime scene made to look like an accident. He wants Jack to investigate. All that was found that was even a little off was a copy of a work by John Millington Synge near the body. However, Jack doesn't see murder, and besides, he has his hands full with the husband of an ex-lover. Add to this a crazy vigilante group and a newly-found woman, and you understand why Jack takes his time about getting to the drug dealer's problem. But when a second young woman dies the same way, and a book by Synge is found underneath her body, Jack's forced to take notice.

I love these books, I love these characters, and although Taylor is pitiful (and I do mean just absolutely pitiful), I can't get enough of this guy.

Highly recommended -- if you're after it for the mystery aspect only, you'll miss so much more in this series. I think people who've been following the series will enjoy it (my guess, before I read the next in the series it's a turning point) and will want as I did to read it soon after the Magdalen Martyrs. These books all turn on Jack Taylor's character -- not the element of the whodunits embedded into the story by the author.

Fabulous - and I'm off to order the next. Do NOT read this one without the 3 previous behind you. ( )

Jack's clean and sober, and attending mass regularly. He's in danger of
turning into something resembling an upstanding citizen, but this is
Jack Taylor we're talking about. Asked to investigate the supposedly accidental death of student, he becomes suspicious of foul play when another student is found dead in very similar circumstances. Typically brilliant Bruen writing, and after that ending I just have to get hold
of the next book as soon as I can. ( )

Jack Taylor is a man defined by his vices and weaknesses. Essentially, he is a man whose life has been largely consumed by an abuse of alcohol, pills, cocaine and nicotine. Taylor does nothing half way and his weaknesses have ensured that his personal life is a wreck; he runs women off at a steady pace and his closest friends are the two octogenarian women who run the failing hotel at which he's taken up permanent residence. But, hey, things are looking up for Jack. He's been off the dope and booze for a few weeks and he's even thinking about giving up cigarettes - all because his dealer has been given a six year prison sentence and Jack doesn't have the energy to locate a new supplier.

It is when Jack's dealer summons him to the prison to ask for help in finding out why and how his sister was killed that Jack reluctantly resumes his non-paying work as a private detective. The Dramatist is Ken Bruen's fourth Jack Taylor novel, and this time around, Bruen offers a more elaborate and detailed plot than in the previous three. Even so, Taylor's reluctance to get involved in the investigation of what he soon realizes was a murder and not an accidental death allows the author to detail Jack's daily struggles to remain sober and to rebuild the personal life that drugs and booze have taken from him.

This is the heart of the book and, along the way, Jack watches his mother's steady deterioration, is confronted by an old lover while struggling to maintain a new relationship, is challenged by one of his few friends to confront a group of vigilantes and is threatened by a deranged killer. Ultimately, the murder investigation is brought to a successful climax but that was not the most intriguing part of the book for me as a reader and, in fact, the killer's identity came as no great surprise. Rather, I found myself fascinated by the train wreck that is Jack Taylor's life. I rooted for him as he managed to stay off the booze after each personal crisis confronted him but I didn't really expect him to manage it. His personal history filled me with skepticism that his abstinence would last despite the fact that he continued to surprise his friends and even himself by remaining stone cold sober no matter what life tossed at him next.

But be warned: even my skepticism did not prepare me for the ending of this book. I was stunned at its suddenness and power. The Dramatist is the first Ken Bruen novel that I've read without thinking about, and admiring, the author's style more than the novel's plot. Jack Taylor fans will consider this one to be a classic.

Rated at: 4.0 ( )