Ken Bruen

The author of Blitz and the Jack Taylor novels delivers a “fast-paced, tough and explosive” tale of a killer couple (The Irish Times).
 
Cooper likes Ed McBain novels, action movies, and robbing banks. Released from prison, he’s back on the outside, and in business with another former con. They call themselves “Righteous Repo.” It’s so legit they even have an accountant. It’s...

In elderly priest is nearly beaten to death. A special-needs boy is brutally attacked. Evil has many guises, and private investigator Jack Taylor has encountered most of them. But nothing before has ever truly terrified him until he confronts a group calling itself Headstone, responsible for a series of random violent crimes in Galway, Ireland. As Headstone barrels along its deadly path right to the center of Taylor's life, he will need to call upon...

Somewhere in the teeming heart of London is a man on a lethal mission. His cause: a long-overdue lesson on the importance of manners. When a man gives a public tongue-lashing to a misbehaving child, or a parking lot attendant is rude to a series of customers, the "Manners Killer" makes sure that the next thing either sees is the beginning of his own grisly end. When he starts mailing letters to the Southeast London police squad, he'll soon find out...

Jack Taylor has never quite been able get his life together, but now he has truly hit rock bottom. Still reeling from a violent family tragedy, Taylor is busy drowning his grief in Jameson and uppers, as usual, when a high-profile officer in the local Garda is murdered. After another Guard is found dead, and then another, Taylor's old colleagues from the force implore him to take on the case. The plot is one big game, and all of the pieces seem to...

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...

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...

Chief Inspector Roberts combs London for the bloodthirsty psychopath who killed his brother When Tommy got out of prison, he decided to become Irish. He changed his last name to Logan, moved to southeast London, and started toting a hurleyan ash stick that's as big as a baseball bat and twice as deadly. This faux-Irish killer quickly distinguished himself as one of the south side's smartest: a master of money laundering, front corporations, and keeping...

Jack Taylor brings death and pain to everyone he loves. His only hope of redemption, his surrogate son, Cody, is lying in the 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, both...

Ken Bruen is beloved for his black humor, verse-like prose, and irascible protagonist Jack Taylor, an ex-cop who is as addicted to trouble as he is to Jameson, pills, and pop culture. In The Emerald Lie, the latest terror to be visited upon the dark Galway streets arrives in a most unusual form: a Cambridge graduate who becomes murderous over split infinitives, dangling modifiers, and any other sign of bad grammar. Meanwhile, Jack is approached by...

A collection of novellas and stories from Shamus Award winner Ken Bruen, author of the Jack Taylor series. An Irishman with an ebullient love of life draws inspiration from the literature and poetry of death. A born loser with an 'ex-wife, an ex-child, and no excuses' accompanies his alcoholic brother on a startling plunge into liberating despair. A self-styled vigilante avenges the death of his wife and child by waging a one-man war against the London...