Once Were Cops

First Sentence: "Where do I begin?' Matthew Patrick O'Shea, knows as Shea, lives in Glasgow and is a member of the Guarda. He always wanted to be a decent human being and a cop. But he has a dark side that keeps him from being that decent human; a long a way from it. He transfers to New York City as part of a police exchange and partners with Kebar, someone almost as out of control as Shea. They go from being partners and almost friends to enemies, with innocents damaged along the way. Bruen is an exceptional writer. His writing is crisp and spare. Full paragraphs are the exception rather than the rule. Not a word is wasted or superfluous. He conveys more in a sentence that others do in a chapter. He is the only author I know who can write a book about thoroughly despicable characters and make me love the book. And Shea is a thoroughly despicable character. It was, however, nice to have Jack Taylor put in a cameo appearance and there be a link to a Jack Taylor book. This book is definitely not for everyone. It is dark, profane and brutal. It is also excellent.

There is magic in Ken Bruen's unadorned prose that is not easily identified. But once you've read it, you may wonder why it takes other authors paragraphs to conjure an image that Bruen knocks off in a single line, making it look easy. And once you've read him, you'll never mistake for anyone else in his uncluttered style telling of life on those mean streets outside the pages of "People Magazine." "Once Were Cops" is classic Bruen: spare, lean, and brutal. In this talented writer's world, there is no black and white - but that's not to mean it is ambiguous. There is simply the absence of white. Told in the first person, Michael O'Shea - "Shea" - is a rookie "Guard" - a beat cop on Galway's cold and damp streets. He is also a sociopath subject to Jekyll and Hyde-like mood swings which transform this normally competent, if hard-edged, young policeman into a stalking serial killer who preys on young women. But Galway's streets bore quickly and the Guard's no-gun policy dampens Shea's fun, so when an opportunity for an exchange with the NYPD arises, through some mildly menacing extortion with a local pol, in jig time Shea is wearing the NYPD blue. He is teamed with "Kebar", a menace in his own right with enough attitude and baggage for an entire city precinct, hiding a mentally retarded adult sister in an exclusive nursing home courtesy of the local mafia overlord. But with the twin demons Shea and Kebar turned loose on the streets, New York City's "thugery" find themselves on the wrong end of the terror they're usually disbursing. Bruen keeps his story lines simple and clean, and this is a fast read - easily polished off in a setting or two. But don't let the surface simplicity fool you, as the cagey Bruen is always holding a few twists up his sleeve as he feints and ducks his way to an ironically satisfying, though hardly redeeming, climax. Along the way, hardcore Bruen fans will catch Jack Taylor's cameo in Galway, and chuckle at the subliminal shout-out to crime writer-buddy Duane Swierczynski. Look, I'll admit - Ken Bruen's brand of crime and style is not for everyone. Bruen's fatally flawed "heroes" - the deeply troubled Shea we meet here, or the alcoholic and anti-social Jack Taylor of previous Galway novels, or the boorish and brutal miscreant Sergeant Brant from the East London precinct series - will depress those looking for virtue and social redeeming value and neatly wrapped, made-for-TV conclusions. And Bruen's black themes and unvarnished fatalism are probably not the stuff Dr. Phil would prescribe to his troubled flock. But for a slice of the noir and an insightful peak into the psyche of evil, none are better equipped to deliver the goods than the fiendishly brilliant Mr. Bruen. Bravo.

I've read a few of Ken Bruen's works. They're good, suspenseful, well plotted and filled with fairly rich characters. Wouldn't call myself a fan, though. But that could change with "Once Were Cops". Written in a variant of noir style, "Once Were Cops" moves quickly, four hours in my case from start to finish. The plot pulls you in and the characters pull you along. Michael O'Shea is stone cold. A member of the Guards, the Irish police force, O'Shea is shrewd, dishonest to the core, manipulative, a complete psychopath. He wants to go to America and intimidates a local politician into making it happen via an exchange program between the Irish Guards and the New York Police Department. At the NYPD, O'Shea is partnered with Kebar, a near mirror-image. The two do not start off well, which is important to the continuing narrative. Together, though, Kebar and O'Shea forge an alliance of sorts and it isn't one of men who love each other as comrades. The action never stops. Kebar and O'Shea are both ruthless men with a love of violence that they act out in different ways. It is those differences that constitute the main story. There is love. There is violence. And corruption and human weaknesses, truth and lies. Everything needed for a compelliung noir thriller that never lets up until the very last page where, disappointingly, Bruen seems to lay the groundwork for a sequel, which is a disgusting concession to commercialism. 293 pages of absolutely solid writing - 1 page of crass pandering. Not bad. A great story, superbly written. Just skip the very last page. Jerry

Some books have really great titles, sometimes better than the books themselves. On the other hand, Ken Bruen's new crime novel has a title that is as awkward as the story itself is great: Once Were Cops. The main character (and occasional narrator) of Once Were Cops is Michael O'Shea, an Irish policeman who has joined the NYPD as part of an exchange program. O'Shea is, to say the least, troubled, having occasional psychotic episodes. He is partnered with a corrupt and violent cop nicknamed Kebar. It takes a little while, but they will bond. At first Kebar seems the worst of the pair, but it is soon apparent that a lot of the evils in his life are due to abusive parents and getting the funds to care for the only person he loves, his mentally disabled sister. O'Shea, however, turns out to be far worse, and he will soon commit a crime that will affect Kebar deeply, one that will set a war between the cops, the mob and some Internal Affairs folks. Bruen's style in this book is distinct, with lots of short paragraphs that help create the almost frenetic pace of the story. The style also makes this a fast read, making it move faster than the 294 pages (in my edition). This is a dark tale but if you're into crime novels that really have bite, this is a great choice.