KEN BRUEN SERIES:

American Skin

American Skin

Ken Bruen

Mystery & Thrillers / Literature & Fiction

At the beginning of Bruen's dark tribute to the Irish fascination with the American dream, Stephen Blake is on the run after a bank heist, hoping to disappear in the desert near Tucson. Blake has the money and his girlfriend, Siobhan, knows how to launder it. All he has to do is change his accent and his skin and pass as an American. But John A. Stapleton, contract killer for the IRA, wants more than his share of the swag—and the psychotic Dade, obsessively devoted to the music of Tammy Wynette, is wandering the Southwest like a slaughter wagon. Noir master Bruen (The Guards) effortlessly moves his storyline back and forth in time, all his trademark pop-culture references in place, the banshee of existential agony wailing loudly.
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A Galway Epiphany

A Galway Epiphany

Ken Bruen

Mystery & Thrillers / Literature & Fiction

"They don't come much tougher than Ken Bruen's Irish roughneck, Jack Taylor, a man with bad habits who does good despite himself."―Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review Ex-cop-turned-PI Jack Taylor has finally escaped the despair of his violent life in Galway in favor of a quiet retirement in the country with his friend, a former Rolling Stones roadie, and a falcon named Maeve. But on a day trip back into the city to sort out his affairs, Jack is hit by a truck in front of Galway's Famine Memorial, left in a coma but mysteriously without a scratch on him. When he awakens weeks later, he finds Ireland in a frenzy over the so-called "Miracle of Galway." People have become convinced that the two children spotted tending to him are saintly, and the site of the accident sacred. The Catholic Church isn't so sure, and Jack is commissioned to help find the children to verify the miracle—or expose the stunt. But Jack isn't the...
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Slide

Slide

Ken Bruen

Mystery & Thrillers / Literature & Fiction

_WARNING!_ THIS MAY BE THE MOST SHOCKING BOOK YOU EVER READ! Max Fisher used to run a computer company; Angela Petrakos was his assistant and mistress. But that was last year. Now Max is reinventing himself as a hip-hop crack dealer and Angela's back in Ireland, hooking up with a would-be record-setter.in the field of serial killing. Will their paths cross again? What do you think? From the evil geniuses who brought you Bust comes a roller-coaster ride of suspense, mayhem and vicious fun that'll make you reluctant ever to open your mail again. Don't say we didn't warn you.
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Callous

Callous

Ken Bruen

Mystery & Thrillers / Literature & Fiction

Inheriting a Galway cottage may change a troubled woman's life—but not the way she hopes—in this thriller from an "original, grimly hilarious" author (The Washington Post). Kate Mitchell's in the process of kicking her heroin addiction—with the help of alcohol—when a letter arrives informing her that her aunt in Ireland has passed away and bequeathed her a home near the ocean. This could be the start of a new and better life for Kate, far away from Brooklyn, where she and her surviving brothers are each struggling with their own dark pasts. But Aunt Mary didn't die peacefully—quite the opposite. The pair of thugs responsible for her murder had plans for her house: namely, turning it into a lovely seaside meth lab. One of Mary's killers, however, finds his focus shifting when he spots a photo of the dead woman's American niece, who bears a striking resemblance to the late opera singer Maria Callas, the beloved...
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In the Galway Silence

In the Galway Silence

Ken Bruen

Mystery & Thrillers / Literature & Fiction

The latest Jack Taylor novel from the Godfather of Irish noir. For fans of Adrian McKinty and Derek Raymond. After too much tragedy and violence, Jack Taylor might have at long last found contentment. Of course, he still knocks back too much Jameson and dabbles in uppers, but he has a new woman in his life, a freshly bought apartment, and little sign of trouble on the horizon, unless you count looking after his girlfriend's spoilt nine-year-old. But once again, trouble comes to him, this time in the form of wealthy Frenchman Pierre Renaud, who wants Jack to investigate the double-murder of his twin sons. Entitled, drug-addled, les enfants terribles were bound to a wheelchair, mouths glued shut and pushed off the pier. He shouldn't, but Jack reluctantly agrees to investigate and it opens the door to the past again... 'Bruen is on top form' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. 'Nobody writes like Ken...
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Book of Virtue

Book of Virtue

Ken Bruen

Mystery & Thrillers / Literature & Fiction

With his hated father dead, a man's life takes a dangerous turnHe doesn't cry when his father, Frank, dies. The old man was an abusive, self-absorbed drunk, and when cancer takes him to his deathbed, his son is there to watch. At Frank's final moment he leans over and whispers in his ear, letting the dying man know that he's glad to see him go.His only inheritance is a heavy, leather-bound book. He has never seen it before, and has trouble believing that his brutal, ignorant father ever touched something so beautiful. But the volume is well-thumbed, full of aphorisms and advice written in the dead man's hand. Soon after he reads it, the son finds his life spiraling out of control. If he doesn't want to follow Daddy to the grave, he had best heed the lessons of the book.
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The Ghosts of Galway

The Ghosts of Galway

Ken Bruen

Mystery & Thrillers / Literature & Fiction

Ken Bruen is a singular voice in crime fiction "with his ear for lilting Irish prose and his taste for the kind of gallows humor heard only at the foot of the gallows" (New York Times Book Review). In The Ghosts of Galway, he brings those elegiac talents to bear on a case involving a famously blasphemous red book and Bruen's equally profane antihero Jack Taylor. As well-versed in politics, pop culture, and crime fiction as he is ill-fated in life, Jack Taylor is recovering from a mistaken medical diagnosis and a failed suicide attempt. In need of money, and with former cop on his resume, Jack has been hired as a night-shift security guard. But his Ukrainian boss has Jack in mind for a bit of off-the-books work. He wants Jack to find what some claim to be the first true book of heresy, The Red Book, currently in the possession of a rogue priest who is hiding out in Galway after fleeing a position at the Vatican. Despite Jack's distaste for priests of any...
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Cross

Cross

Ken Bruen

Mystery & Thrillers / Literature & Fiction

Cross (kros/ noun, verb, adjective) means an ancient instrument of torture, or, in a very bad humour, or, a punch thrown across an opponent's punch. Jack Taylor brings death and pain to everyone he loves. His only hope of redemption – his surrogate son, Cody – is lying in hospital in a coma. At least he still has Ridge, his old friend from the Guards, though theirs is an unorthodox relationship. When she tells him that a boy has been crucified in Galway city, he agrees to help her search for the killer. Jack's investigations take him to many of his old haunts where he encounters ghosts, dead and living. Everyone wants something from him, but Jack is not sure he has anything left to give. Maybe he should sell up, pocket his Euros and get the hell out of Galway like everyone else seems to be doing. Then the sister of the murdered boy is burned to death, and Jack decides he must hunt down the killer, if only to administer his own brand of rough justice.
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The Killing of the Tinkers

The Killing of the Tinkers

Ken Bruen

Mystery & Thrillers / Literature & Fiction

Jack Taylor, a disgraced ex-cop in Galway, has slid further down the slope of despair. After a year in London he returns to his home town of Galway with a leather coat and a coke habit. Someone is systematically slaughtering young travellers and dumping their bodies in the city centre. Even in the state he's in, Jack Taylor has an uncanny ability to know where to look, what questions to ask, and with the aid of an English policeman, apparently solves the case. Now he stands poised on the precipice of the most devastating decision of his career, while at the same time a rare opportunity of real and enduring love also materialises. As with The Guards, the city of Galway dances, jeers, consoles, threatens, entices, near kills and yet continues to be the ultimate ground of Jack Taylor's transcendence, all he understands of heaven and hell. Ken won a Macavity Award for The Killing of the Tinkers… it won for best novel! He was also nominated for an Anthony and a Barry Award.
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