Jack Taylor: A Mysterious Profile

By Ken Bruen

A portrait of the PI from the Shamus Award winner who created him: “They don’t come much tougher than Ken Bruen’s Irish roughneck, Jack Taylor.” —The New York Times Book Review

In this short work, Edgar Award finalist Ken Bruen—“a Celtic Dashiell Hammett”—takes us deeper into his character Jack Taylor, formerly of Ireland’s police force, the Garda Síochána, now a living-on-the-edge private detective (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

“Jack, as ja series know all too well, has a gift for blarney, for plain speaking, for poetic melancholy, for downing shots of Jameson’s [sic] without ice, and for pregnant one-word paragraphs.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Bruen’s storytelling style, a stream-of-consciousness mix of prose and verse, strips away Galway’s tourist-board facade and offers a darkly comic social commentary.” —Booklist

“The Godfather of the modern Irish crime novel.” —The Irish Times 

“[Taylor’s] voice is wry and bittersweet, but somehow always hopeful.” —The Seattle Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Apr 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504074360

Ken Bruen

Ken Bruen is one of the most prominent Irish crime writers of the last two decades. He received a doctorate in metaphysics, taught English in South Africa, and then became a crime novelist. He is the recipient of two Barry Awards, two Shamus Awards and has twice been a finalist for the Edgar Award. He lives in Galway, Ireland.

Book preview

Jack Taylor

A Mysterious Profile

Ken Bruen

Jack Taylor

I’m always asked in interviews where this odd, grizzled, grumpy PI Taylor came from.

He is the world’s worst detective. Cases get solved not because of him but despite him.

He’s

Alcoholic

Addict

Rude

Obnoxious

And in very bad shape

And yet … Forster’s famous words.

He gets the job done … somehow, and he so desperately wants to connect, even though he’d never admit it.

Only connect.

Jack does … usually when he least expects to.

His love of books has saved his sanity on so many occasions.

I said on a TV show recently, Jack hasn’t drunk for nigh on three books, and they laughed.

Uproariously. They would.

Three books …

And not a drink.

For them a joke. For Jack, total hell.

And the reviews say Jack is mellowing. Like fuck.

They ain’t seen Cross yet.

Or Benediction.

He’s only warming up.

He will bow out on the final book … titled … Amen.

And no one can utter those words with quite such conviction as Jack.

When the end comes, and come it will, no one will be happier than Jack.

Yet …

The Guards … his first outing, he was drinking but still a little in control, and