Sanctuary

After his move to America is derailed by Ridge's illness, a sober Jack Taylor is pulled back into the investigation game when a religious psycho gives him (and only him) the clues necessary to prevent her murder of a child. This may be my favorite Jack Taylor book yet. The plot is compelling and the pacing is almost thriller-like. There is also a revelation regarding an major event from one of the previous books. As usual, Bruen's sparse prose is full of humor so dry you'd miss it if you weren't paying attention. My only complaint is that despite a visit to his bookseller, this installment offered no new reading recommendations for me.

In my opinion, this may be the best Jack Taylor novel in this uniformly excellent series. It is rather short (about 200 pages) but it packs a whole lot of action and interesting dialogue on almost every page. Once again Jack is besieged by all his old devils: booze, drugs and general malaise. The weather, of course, is always around to add more depression to the plot, and the murders are typically gruesome. Once again a child is involved, and Jack and some of the characters from the previous novels are together again. One can only feel sorry for Jack, despite his obvious weaknesses. No sooner does an old tragedy get lifted from his shoulders than another problem begins to drag him down. Deep down, howeve, he is an extremely decent and (dare I say) kindly man, and one who is easy to root for when it comes to straightening out his troubled and tangled life. I hope very much that we have not heard the last from this man and his life and surroundings.

I don't think there is anyone who writes dialogue better than Ken Bruen. His character, Jack Taylor, is flawed but Bruen makes him so endearing you can't wait to see what comes out of his mouth, or his thoughts, next. Jack receives a letter in the mail listing the people that will be murdered. He dismisses it as a crank letter but then the people start dying. In the previous book Jack was headed to America, but Ridge, one of his few friends, was diagnosed with breast cancer so he stuck around for support. With the Jack Taylor series, the author focuses more on Jack's life in Galway, Ireland, writing it like a diary, with whatever case Jack is working on set in the background like an afterthought. This may aggravate some people but when it's a character driven series such as this and a writer like Bruen, I can forgive him anything. At the end of the book Ridge gives Jack a present - a ticket to New York. If Jack thinks Galway has problems, wait til he sees New York!

With each new book --- and he is clipping along with at least two a year at this point --- Ken Bruen doesn't so much redefine the crime novel landscape, or alter it, so much as make it his own. I present as Exhibit "A" SANCTUARY, Bruen's seventh Jack Taylor novel. Taylor is an ex-Irish guard turned de facto Galway private investigator. He is not a rumpled knight with a taste for rock and rye; he is a full-blown alcoholic who falls on and off the wagon just a little less often than you or I might partake of a change of clothes. Either way, the transition is not pretty, but Bruen never lets Taylor's eyes blink once as he drags us, sometimes kicking and screaming, through the wreckage of what occurs. There is a passage in which Taylor describes what will kick a recovering drunk off of a successful rehab, one that so perfectly paints the picture of the razor wire that all addicts walk that it brought tears to my eyes. Bruen gives us descriptions of similar quality at a frequency of about one per page in this story of pursuit, deception, regret and, ultimately, redemption. SANCTUARY begins with Taylor's receipt of a cryptic letter signed by "Benedictus." It presents a shopping list of murder --- two guards, a nun, a priest and a child --- informing Taylor that only he will truly comprehend. The murders begin, apparently unrelated, with only Taylor aware of their common significance. He already has much on his plate, given the illness of his former Garda partner and a revelation that sends him, as well as faithful readers of this series, reeling in horror. Nonetheless, Taylor attempts to determine who the mysterious Benedictus is, working backward from the identities of the murder victims to find some common thread other than their occupations as listed, even as his warnings to the local guards fall on deaf ears. Given Taylor's less-than-stellar reputation, he really cannot expect much more. Taylor accordingly must rely on his own powers of deduction, both diminished and fueled by alcohol abuse. But when Benedictus's choice of a final victim strikes dangerously close to home for Taylor, he must risk all on one last guess and pray that he is right, even as he realizes that he is well-nigh damned either way. A recurrent, unifying theme of the Taylor novels is the manner in which the backspray of an alcoholic's past misdeeds and omissions continues to haunt and resonate years, even decades, later. This is especially true in SANCTUARY, where the shade of an act of Taylor's performed years before under the cloak of inebriation comes back to haunt him. As always, Bruen's prose is beautifully spare, instantly familiar and utterly unforgettable, infused with enough memorable turns of phrase to fill three books. And --- as if one needs more --- he weaves music and literature throughout the narrative, providing a recommended list of noir and other fiction, and several CD titles for musical accompaniment, that will hold you until his next offering. Finally,

Even though his writing always conjures up pain & evil it manages to make you feel good. It is a fast read but catches you early on as long as you have been tuned in by reading the series. Your life has to be positively upbeat compared to Jack Taylor! Sláinte !