Priest

Although I enjoy the long elegant sentences from the likes of P.D. James, Ken Bruen's spare prose fizzes with spirit and fully conveys his ideas with a minimum of words. Jack Taylor is even more tortured than most fictional detectives, but he is one of my top picks, affirmed by Iain Glenn who played Jack on the tv series. Cody, his self-appointed sidekick, is a fitting partner. Bruen descibes Ireland, particularly Galway, in such a way that shows the old country alongside the prosperity and changes that have come about in recent years, all of which provides a clearer picture of the current state. He never shies away from controversial issues and here Jack's case involves a priest who abused altar boys and has been found beheaded in the show more confessional.

Bruen's frequent references to language, literature, and music add to Taylor's personality as well as the atmosphere of Galway.

"She raised her eyes to heaven, said, 'Once the races are over, we're in quare street.' The Irish pronounce queer as quare and it's not anything to do with Gay issues, it's purely for the sound of the word, to give it a full and resounding flavour. We love to taste the vocabulary, swill it around the mouth, let it blossom out into full bloom." show less

it's been a bit of time since I read a Jack Taylor book, and when the last one ended we see Jack on a major downhill slide after a terrible accident happened when he was minding his friends' three-year-old daughter. Serena May was only three and she had Down syndrome. When this book opens we see Jack in a mental hospital after being admitted to dry out and for some much-needed therapy sessions. This surprisingly literate private dick, hasn't even been reading as he's still blaming himself for what happened to Serena May. Jack's friend Ridge, who is a guard in Galway brings him home after the hospital releases him. Jack is still a long way from well, but he is not drinking, and he decides to give up smoking too. When his late mother's show more priest, Father Malachy, stops him in the street to ask for help in discovering who killed and beheaded a priest right in church, Jack wants to say no. He hates Father Malachy and he knows that he is not really up for joining the land of the living yet. But he decides to look into it because he wants to know why someone would do that to a priest. What he discovers is totally appalling and his search leads him to some survivors from the priest's actions in his younger years. Jack's recovery is a bit rocky, but he does stick to his guns on the drinking and fags. He's also dealing with some old ghosts and unresolved issues from before he was admitted. But Jack, being Jack, he does uncover the truth, albeit it wasn't a very satisfactory "solve". As with all Jack Taylor books, the ending is a real cliff-hanger, and I do wish Ken Bruen wouldn't do this every time, but I love this series and I love Jack Taylor so much that I try not let it get to me. It's something to look forward to with the next book, I guess. If you like hard-boiled, noir crime novels, and powerful, but flawed characters, then this series is just for you. The spare language and pace of the books helps to bring up the tension several notches. show less

“My previous years I’d spent as a half-assed private investigator, finding people, solutions, mostly fueled on alcohol. Time after time, I’d been plunged into horror, disaster, and lost everyone I cared about. The list of my dead would cover a wall.”

Yes, Jack Taylor, our favorite Irish rogue is back and no one describes himself better.
This is Jack’s fifth venture and he is hired to look into the murder of a local priest: beheaded in the rectory. Allegations of child abuse are abundant. And as usual, Jack juggles this along with many other difficult issues, personal and otherwise. Not many bright spots here but Bruen’s writing remains sharp and pungent throughout. I love this series.

“Could picture placing an ad in the show more paper, to go
Drunkard
Early fifties
Recently released from mental asylum
Seeks gainful employment.
Yeah, that’d work” show less

Priest opens with its anti-hero, Jack Taylor, having been virtually catatonic in an asylum for five months, following the event that occurred at the very end of [b:The Dramatist: A Novel|323489|The Dramatist A Novel|Ken Bruen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173752608s/323489.jpg|1822293]. If you have read the earlier novel you will not think that unreasonable at all (and if you haven't Jack does explain early on what led him to his current low point). But a chance encounter pulls him out of his fugue state in time to leave the institution and be called upon by his old nemesis, Father Malachy to investigate the beheading of a local priest.

That synopsis makes the book sound more like a traditional crime novel than it really is, when show more really the crimes are a device for Bruen to explore the changes he has observed in Irish society. The most significant of these is the impact of the exposure of widespread paedophilia by Catholic priests and the sustained cover-up by the Church. The impact on individuals, as Jack tracks down two men who were abused by the recently murdered priest, is beautifully depicted, though, of course, extremely sad. And through the first-person telling of the story by Jack we also see the impact on the wider society which was once, in various ways, held together by the Church and its representatives (the priests) and is now adrift somewhat without the familiar anchor. Having been raised Catholic (now lapsed) I have read and watched whatever I can get my hands on about this theme, both fiction and non-fiction, and I cannot recall having read anything which depicts the far-reaching impacts of this series of events as thoughtfully, intelligently and accurately as has been done here. Bruen has teased out what the media coverage, with its sensational headlines and moving on to the next story after 5 minutes, always misses: the lasting impact on victims, their families and all the connected people who've had their beliefs shattered.

Jack is more 'together' than he thinks he has a right to be here, though 'together' is a relative term. He acquires a home (several at one point), and a trainee and does his job with a little more dedication than in the previous novel though he is, at heart, one of life's losers which is soon borne out. Though he is a loser with the soul of a poet and his ode to Ireland, and its people, which is partly what this book felt like to me, is quite haunting. As is his depiction of both alcoholism and depression and their effects upon the sufferer, which makes more sense and has more clarity than most of the non-fiction you'll read on either subject.

The rest of the characters are somewhat minor players who surround Jack for the most part but even if their appearance is fleeting they're all brilliantly drawn. One who stood out for me was a nun who looked after Father Joyce (prior to his beheading). I might have grown up half a world away from Ireland but I know nuns exactly like her: sharing both behaviour and fears. Bruen has captured perfectly the impact the Church's hierarchy enforced social deprivations has on such a person.

There's no getting away from the fact that Jack Taylor and his exploits make for melancholy reading but Bruen manages, through a combination of humour and wonderfully crisp writing that doesn't enable the reader to wallow in despair, to make it an enjoyable experience. I'm being a bit harsh in not giving the book a full 5 stars but the ending was a smidgen less brilliant than the ending of its predecessor so I thought it only fair to knock off a half a star.

My rating 4.5/5 stars show less

Little did I realize when I picked up my first Ken Bruen book, The Guards, back in the middle of April that I was going to have read three others of his by the middle of July. But that's exactly what has happened. Initially I was fascinated by the way that Bruen paid homage to many of my favorite American Noir writers of the past by using a writing style so similar to theirs and by including quotes from many of them in his books. But after reading another Jack Taylor story in Bruen's Calibre I started to wonder if too much of a good thing was going to grow a bit old. As I was soon to learn, there was no need to worry about that because Bruen lightened up on all the direct references to those writers of the forties and fifties and really show more hit his stride with the next Taylor novel, The Dramatist. Now, with Priest, Bruen has placed himself solidly on the watch list I keep to make sure that I don't miss any new work of certain writers.

Fans of Bruen's Jack Taylor novels will probably notice that I didn't mention The Magdalen Martyrs, an earlier book in the series. I almost always read "series fiction" in the order in which it is written but I somehow missed that one when its turn came. But it is on my shelves waiting for me now.

The beginning of Priest finds Jack Taylor confined to the mental hospital he ended up in as a result of the shocking tragedy that ended The Dramatist. Having lost all will to live, and preferring to drink himself to death, Jack still somehow managed to stay away from the booze before being locked up for his own good. Now he is being released just in time to find that his old friends have not fared well during his five months in the institution and that he barely recognizes the Ireland in which he lives. Taylor realizes that things in Galway have taken a particularly nasty turn when he hears that a priest has been beheaded inside his confessional booth.

Desperately needing something to keep his mind off of the events that placed him in the mental institution, Taylor reluctantly agrees to look into this murder at the request of Father Malachy, an old friend of his mother's. What he finds out about the dead priest's history of sexual abuse going back to the sixties, and how it was covered up, does not surprise him in the least as he tries to identify the killer. But Jack's life is never that simple. Along the way, he takes on a young, eager partner who needs a father figure as badly as Jack needs someone to take care of, a match not exactly made in heaven but one which Jack comes to accept. Their new relationship is severely tested when Jack is asked by an old friend to find and stop the stalker who is threatening her.

As is always the case in his Jack Taylor novels, Ken Bruen surrounds his basic story with the devastating portrait of what it must be like to walk in the shoes of an alcoholic who is always one drink away from losing control of his life. Jack is well aware of his problem and is forced to avoid his old friends and neighborhoods because everyone he meets seems to be heading to a pub and would be happy to have Jack join them in an exchange of rounds. His struggle to remain sober takes on an almost heroic nature and is painful to watch. Despite his self-control problems and his tendency to solve problems with the use of violence, be it verbal or physical, Jack Taylor is a hard man not to like. He loves the music of Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan and is a dedicated reader of relatively obscure American authors who are little appreciated even in their own country. Despite all of his troubles, his personal library somehow seems to survive and he is such a book collector that bookstore owners give him first crack at books they know he will appreciate. What's not to like about a man like that?

Readers will find that a Jack Bruen novel does not wind down in the manner of most detective or crime fiction. Bruen doesn't rely on a recap of previous events to provide him with an easy ending for his books and, in fact, some of his hardest punches to the reader's gut come just when it appears that all the story has been told. Ken Bruen has carved out a worthy spot for himself among all those authors he so admires.

Rated at: 4.0 show less

Here we are, at installment number five of the Jack Taylor series. First, let me say that I've read a number of reviews of this book in which it was the first Taylor book the reviewer had read -- this is probably not the best one to start with. There's so much of Jack's character that begins with book one (The Guards) that starting at book five leaves you with big holes to be filled in only by sketchy references to events from the others.

brief look (no spoilers, I promise)

Like its predecessors in this series, Priest finds us once again watching the train wreck that you just know is going to happen, from which you are unable to avert your eyes. After the tragic events in The Dramatist (the book just prior to this one), Jack completely show more loses it and eventually finds his way into a mental hospital. After some time, an encounter with another patient puts him back on the road to recovery (as if one can ever recover from what put Jack there in the first place), and he is released, back to the streets of Galway. His old nemesis, Father Malachy, has a job for him: he wants him to find out who decapitated a priest who has a penchant for molesting young children. But (and faithful readers know there's always a but) he has a lot more on his plate: a young man who wants to team up with him in the role of a Watson to his Sherlock; his relationship with Ridge his Garda friend; his realization that his actions in the previous book also had tragic consequences for those closest to him, and last but not least, the fact that the Galway he's known since a child is changing right in front of him, and not for the better.

As I've said previously about these books, don't look to them for your daily dose of warm and fuzzy. I think that one reason I enjoy these books so much is because Bruen (through the voice of Taylor) just sort of tells it like it is -- no holds barred. I tend to get very involved while I read these; I find myself wincing at stuff Jack said, or I sit and despair over whether the poor guy's going to ever have a decent life again. In fact, I think at the end of each and every book I wonder what could possibly happen next.

Definitely a no-miss if you like Irish crime fiction, but you should know that the mystery here sits in second place to the characters. These novels are definitely the most character driven of any that I've read. I'd definitely recommend these to anyone who has a taste for noir, and a taste for Irish authors. But for pete's sake, don't start with this one as your introduction to Jack Taylor. Go back to the beginning, start with The Guards, and work your way through.

As for me...onward to #6, Cross. show less

This book is number five in the Jack Taylor series and the brutal ending of the previous instalment means the start of this one finds him in a mental asylum. Some words from a fellow inmate manage to penetrate the fog that his life has become and a shred of sanity manages to make an appearance in Jack's life once again. Returning to Galway he finds that almost everything has changed, not just locally but on a national scale. Not back long, Jack is surprised when he is asked for a favour by Father Malachy, one time companion to Jack's mother and certainly no friend to him. Another priest was recently killed, beheaded in his own confessional, and Father Malachy wants Jack to look into things. Rumours abound that the dead priest was show more involved in the sexual abuse of young boys and this provides Jack with the starting point of his investigation.

As usual with this series there are a number of side issues that go along with the main quest and this time around Jack is also helping out Ridge, his lesbian Garda acquaintance, as she seems to have picked up a stalker. There's also young Cody who manages to insinuate himself as a new apprentice despite Jack's initial misgivings. Then there are also the previous events in Jack's life that have to be dealt with and the fallout that entails as well as the day-to-day struggle that is the everyday life of Jack Taylor.

Another wonderful entry into a magnificent series and though the ending is predictable there really could have been no other. show less