Critical Mick

Reviews Free of Rules.

Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

The Guards
Ken Bruen
Brandon, 2001

Distinct and Memorable, with Whiskey Chaser

It's criminal. The Critical Mick site's hidden HTML code advertizes META tags about Irish Crime Fiction, yet has taken many months to feature a novel by Ken Bruen. Bruen is a likely suspect in any lineup designed to spot the most interesting crime writer currently active in Ireland.

The brasser more than stretches the boundaries of crime fiction. Bending laws is for

None of that bender shite, now. Bruen just storms into new territory, punching out preconceptions of what mystery fiction should be. Would his series character, Jack Taylor, care that even in page layout he's breaking the rules of the genre? Would he fuck.

Jack does fit the Matt Scudder mold, in his way. Alcoholic ex-cop private eye with strong moody sense of place and first-person narrative honed masterpiece sharp? They're not cops, they're Guards over here. Garda Siochana means Guardians of the Peace. And the stong locale isn't New York but Galway, on Ireland's west coast. The dark places Jack Taylor goes, though, and goes with style- that's

          true

to

form          

But the question readers expect to drive the novel – who killed the lovely young lady near the opening pages- is the least interesting element of The Guards. Jack Taylor is not a detective who has been met before. His driving passion is not for justice but for the gargle. The battles are not against dark-alley thugs (though heads do get smashed in, and satisyingly) but against regret and oblivion. The focus is not the same in any of the vast library of detective fiction that ex-Guard Jack Taylor has read.

And- here's a tip more sure than the 30 to 1 horse in the 3:30 at Ayr- The Guards is a book lover's book. "Books are my therapy," Taylor tells an alkie he meets in rehab. Except he says it the same way most hard cases would warn, "Fuck off!" Then, man, does Taylor do a lot of reading! Thre are more mentions, opinions, quotations and comparisons in Bruen's work than in the entirety of this

outa line

Critical Mick site. And Bruen delievers 'em with much more insight and style. There's even a mention of Walter Macken's The Silent People, I think in The Guards' sequel.

I have read two of Ken Bruen's other novels. Disorganized bastard that I am, I read Jack Taylor's second installment, The Killing of the Tinkers, years before The Guards. That's grand, all the same. Jack's a disorganized bastard himself.

The Killing of the Tinkers is very much a continuation of The Guards. Jack returns from London, now with a leather jacket and a tin foil square of cocaine secreted on his person. Once again the fits and starts of an informal investigation into a violent death interrupt meditations on drink and literature. No surprises: the clog popper is a member of Ireland's Travelling Community, as promised in the title, and detective work remains far in the back of Jack's engaging narrative.

I remember being disappointed that the crime was solved largely through another investigator's actions, a complaint also levelled against Rose Doyle's Shadows Will Fall. Time has since proved that a novel's worth is judged on more than how strongly it conform to literary convention. The Killing of the Tinkers has remained fresh in my noggin for its pace and style. Bruen's novel is a refreshing change of theme and approach from the rest of the genre, without sacrificing a single whisky chaser of hardboil attitude. No one else does what Ken Bruen does. Distinct and memorable, he's a worthy diversion.

London Boulevard is my fave from Bruen. Ex-con Mitchell...no. Ultimately the plot's not that important, other than to say that it's a surprising riff on a another famous story. The attitude is the most important thing and the attitude is there, in

London Boulevard is an greatly enjoyable novel with a class conclusion. As with all Bruen's work, it's as quotable as Oscar Wilde. But would I spoil a single line's surprise for you?

Would I fuck.

I also enjoyed the serial that Ken Bruen wrote for radio, back in 2002, but never got to hear the conclusion. More's the pity.

Read Declan Burke's interview with Ken Bruen! 

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2006 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

Irate, huh? Managed to piss off another one? Direct your hatemail to mick @ mickhalpin dot com.

This Page Was Last Updated On 7 April, 2006.