Galway Girl

By Ken Bruen

“They don’t come much tougher than Ken Bruen’s Irish roughneck, Jack Taylor,” and crime thrillers don’t get any better than this (The New York Times Book Review).
 
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 be moving at the behest of one dangerously mysterious team: a trio of young killers with very different styles, but who are united their common desire to take down Jack Taylor. Their ring leader is Jericho, a psychotic girl from Galway who is grieving the loss of her lover, and who will force Jack to confront some personal trauma from his past.

As sharp and sardonic as it is starkly bleak and violent, Galway Girl shows master raconteur Ken Bruen at his best: lyrical, brutal, and ceaselessly suspenseful.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9780802147943

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

A Galway girl

Doesn’t necessarily believe she

Is the best catch of all.

It’s more that she’d love

You to prove

She isn’t.

The first Guard was killed on a Friday.

The new Garda superintendent Mary Wilson (who was more than a little sick of the Supremes jokes) declared to the assembled Guards,

This is horrendous.

Owen Daglish, a long-serving, not to mention long-suffering, sergeant, muttered,

Not much escapes the bould Mary.

Sheridan, a loan to the beleaguered Galway station, gave him a look, said,

Watch your mouth, Sonny.

Sonny!

Owen had a good ten years plus fifty pounds on the American.

American is used loosely as Sheridan gave the impression of being a Quantico guy but other elements, such as his fucked-up accent and Irish cynicism, pointed to a more likely Irish heritage but he was nevertheless, as he liked to cut it,

"A very influential swinging dick."

The Galway guys put it in their own tribal accent.

Like this:

A prick.

Sheridan belonged to a new offshoot of Special Branch whose brief ranged wide and definitely included counterterrorism.

His pet obsession was Jack Taylor, the so-called PI who was on the periphiery, as he mauled the term, of so many recent violent deaths and yet stayed one beat ahead—or perhaps behind—an arrest.

It was a new young ban Garda named Nora McEntee who discovered the note at the murder scene. The forensic guys, horrified at the sheer violence of the scene, focused on the body and, owing to the pressure for rapid results, overlooked the most basic item.

The wastepaper basket.

Nora had been left to secure the scene as the professionals treated her like shite, with,

Don’t touch anything, girlie!

You fucking believe it?

Girlie!

This was after she’d been told to grab some coffees for the teams, and the edict,

Don’t fuck up the pastries.

She sneered quietly at these macho blokes fussing over pastries.

How freaking gay were they?

Did they share the treats with her?

Or even refund the twenty euros for the designer java?

Did they fuck.

She’d picked up the trash basket out of curiosity and, lo and behold, a sheaf of parchment, curled at the edges. To age it? Or add grim authenticity?

Unfurled the paper and, smart girl, wearing crime scene gloves,

Read,

Unconsciously admiring the beautiful handwriting, in bold Gothic script,

Ta bronach orm

When Wilson, the super, read this she was not pleased, especially as she had to ask the novice ban Garda, the aforementioned Nora McEntee, to translate.

None of her close-knit team, the favored ones, spoke a word of their native tongue. Time was, you didn’t speak Irish or, worse, didn’t play hurling, you hadn’t a Protestant prayer of joining the Guards.

But now, as the writer Charlie Stella put it,

Fugget about it!

Best intoned in New York hard vowels.

Nora duly obliged, translated,

I am sorry or, actually, I am heartbroken.

Snicker from one of the bright sparks with,

Geez, really, which is it?

Wilson, more than miles beyond patience, sent him to traffic on the Headford road, the roundabout nightmare. He resigned.

Shortly after, thanks to his utter contempt for people, he rapidly became a rising star in the charities racket.

Nora McEntee looked at the framed photos of Guards who had died in the line of duty.

End of watch, as they say in the U.S.

She was gripped by the portrait of ban Garda Ni Iomaire.

Ridge.

She was Nora’s hero.

Ridge had been noted for:

Being gay, in an obscenely misogynist force;

Her utter dedication;

Her fearlessness;

Her patience with new recruits.

Nora had gone to her a few times and she always said the same thing:

Never back down and never, ever let the bastards see you are vulnerable.

She had also introduced her to

Kai tai yung.

A ferociously vicious form of self-defense that mutated in Galway from what had been a benign form of tai chi. To a Guard on the Galway streets when the clubs let out at four in the nasty morning and the fast-food joints were shutting their doors, gentleness was about as useful as a nun’s rosary beads.

The blot on Ridge’s almost brilliant career had been her relationship with Jack Taylor, a notorious drunk and former Guard. Despite repeated warnings, she had stayed in his corner even as her personal feelings toward him soured.

And soured fiercely.

Taylor had been MIA for many months after the death of his daughter.

Nora felt he was far from done. As Ridge had once said,

Taylor always turns up, no matter how fucked he is, and God knows few do fucked like him, but he somehow drags all his bedraggled act in some form of together and shows up.

Ridge had gone silent for a bit, then added,

There is something to be said for a man who does always show up. Not a lot, but you know something.

In those broken words Nora detected a kind of twisted admiration.

On any given

Day in Galway

You will hear at least one busker mutilate the

Words of Galway Girl.

But, if you listen carefully,

Sincerity

Sometimes overcomes

The sheer banality

Of the performance.

Twyford

Makes the very best toilet bowls.

I know because I spent so much time lying on my back, under the bowl, having the first drink to be sick enough for the second one to stay down.

Hopefully.

It had been four months

Since my daughter had been shot dead

Right before my very eyes.

I missed Christmas.

In the sense it came and went and I lay under the bowl, if not the volcano. Then, mid-January, I began to cut back, no reason, maybe just sick of being sick.

Was even trying some exercises to restore some feeling to my shattered body.

If there are exercises for grief I don’t know them.

I was living in an apartment off the Salthill promenade. I could look out across the bay, but now the once wonderful yearning I’d had was no more.

Years, years of that odd yearning, and I had never quite known for what it was I yearned. But now, no more mythical or mystical shite.

In a fit of blind rage and, yes, booze, I grabbed my favorite books, stumbled down to the beach, and began to fling them out across the ocean.

Pathetic?

You betcha.

A few days later, I was attempting to sip some coffee and not to smoke, least until the day grew up. A knock at the door. I shouted,

Fuck off.

More banging.

Right.

I pulled the door near off its hinges, muttering,

What.

A young female guard, ban Garda. And, oh Lord, she looked like a teenager.

Pretty, but something in the eyes, hint of granite.

She asked,

Jack Taylor?

I let out a frustrated breath, said,

You’re at my door, you obviously checked before you came, so unless you’re a complete ejit take a wild guess.

She backed up, her body tensed, said,

There is no need for that tone.

I turned, went back into the apartment, sat and stared at the ocean. She followed me in, with extreme care. She stood before me, said,

I was a huge admirer of Sergeant Ridge.

I felt the guilt kick in, harsh, hard, and merciless, bit down, and said,

How wonderful for you.

Threw her.

She had perhaps been schooled in how to deal with the likes of me but it wasn’t working. I snapped,

What do you want? You liked Ridge, so fucking what?

She gazed around, seeking something to help. There was nothing, just my wall of hostility, but she did try, asked,

There are no books?

I laughed, said,

You’ll make a fine detective.

She held firm, said,

You’ll have heard of the recent death of a Guard.

I said nothing.

She did some figures in her head, trying to make a decision, then,

The man was Ridge’s uncle.

I was surprised. I tried,

I’m sorry to hear that.

She glared at me and looked uncannily like Ridge. I asked, as I moved toward the door,

Was there something else?

She shook her head, asked,

Is that it, you’re sorry?

I felt tired, opened the door, said,

You need to go now.

She considered, then,

They’re right, what they say about you, that you’re …

She searched for some scotching term, settled on,

Pathetic.

She was out in the hall. I shut the door as she was gearing up for more.

I thought,

Nice wee girl.

Moved to the window, watched as she strode away from my apartment. A man got out of a car, crossed the street, walked right up to her, shot her in the face.

"We pursue all criminals

With vigor.

But if one of our own

Is murdered

We will pursue

With a ferocity

Of thundering devotion."

Superintendent Mary Wilson

Scott looked at himself in the mirror.

Saw:

Young man in his twenties,

Blond hair,

Scar along his left cheek, not blatant but noticeable,

Muscular build.

He said,

No psycho vibe there.

He lived in a house off Taylor’s Hill. His father, one of the first prominent Guards in the country, had bought it before the Celtic Tiger disaster.

Had said to Scott,

When you join the Guards, you can live here, then just a smash ’n’ grab to the station.

That was a vague attempt at humor. His father could be accused of many things and, indeed, in his long career, was accused of most, but humor, no.

He had serious plans for his retirement; death never occurred to him. He was washing his prized Audi when a thundering heart attack canceled his plans.

The funeral was a grand affair.

Lots of

Dignitaries,

Clergy,

Top brass.

Scott had to force himself not to puke when they handed the national flag to his mother after the burial. One of the numerous elite guys took Scott aside, whispered,

Look, sorry you didn’t make it onto the force.

Pause.

But apply again. Maybe we can view you in a more favorable light.

Scott stood back, gave the man his practiced stare, the one he believed was ice. He asked,

You think maybe if I work very hard, shite on everyone, perhaps one day I might be like you, a sad cunt?

The obscenity shocked the man. He’d heard almost every epithet in his long career, but in a graveyard? He tried with,

I’m going to cut you some slack seeing as the day it is.

Scott laughed, an eerie echoing sound among the headstones. He said,

"Cut me some slack? Dude, you are so far up your own arse you look like you couldn’t cut air."

The man looked round for some of his troops. Nope, not a one; gone to the pub already. He decided to try the trusted older statesman gig, put his hand on Scott’s shoulder, said,

Son, you are troubled, I get that. Now go home and say your prayers.

Scott leaned back, made a gurgling throat sound as if he were drawing his very heart up, then spat full face on the man, said,

Pray that.

Scott didn’t immediately hit on killing Guards but the incident in the graveyard set the basis. In one of those weird moments of serendipity, he was stopped by a Guard ten minutes after leaving the cemetery, driving his father’s Audi.

Was he speeding?

Yeah, okay, a bit.

He pulled over and the Guard ambled toward him, did the circular finger motion as seen on cop shows. Scott resolved to bite down, keep it together.

The Guard asked,

License and insurance.

Fuck.

Scott tried,

I’m coming from my dad’s burial.

The Guard was chewing gum. Were they allowed that shit?

Asked,

Did I ask you where you’d been?

Scott felt that resolve dip a little, said,

See, it’s my father’s car and—

The Guard cut him off with,

Out.

Just that.

Reviews for Galway Girl

[eyes92c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Irish noir!Jack Taylor, ex Garda, Jameson whiskey glugging alcoholic, and private investigator, attracts tragedy and psychotics in equal amounts. Jack has hit an all time low with the murder of his daughter. The last thing he needed was to become emerged in random acts of murder targeting the Gardai. How is it that this man limps or more often than not, slides from one disastrous situation to another just by being? The action in Galway Girl is brutal and swift buoyed along by the protagonists who are involving themselves in a deadly game of one upmanship. And when Jack becomes the target, well anything can and does happen.Does Jack walk on the wild side, flatlining his emotional needs in a bottle of whiskey or has he just become so inured to what normal people are horrified by that he just can't seem to care?(My visual image of Jack is as always tied to the onscreen detective as portrayed by Iain Glen in his Gardai coat, a few days stubble on his chin, decidedly rumpled, lurching through various mishaps, often without conscious intent).Jack, always a puzzle and a pleasure!A Mysterious Press ARC via NetGalley

[samsattler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Galway Girl, book number fourteen in Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series, adds yet another brutal chapter to Jack Taylor’s long, dark history. Taylor is a former Irish cop with a history of mental illness who regularly drinks himself into the kind of stupor that can take days to recover from. The man has suffered the kind of personal loss that would have driven weaker men to suicide – but Jack Taylor is anything but a weak man. Nor is he a bad man.What he is, though, is a cynic with a big mouth; a man who understands exactly how the real works and is not afraid to shout about it in public. Taylor can count the friends he still has in the Garda on fewer than half the fingers on one hand, and he gave up counting his active enemies on the force a long time ago. And while Galway is still very much a Catholic-Church-dominated city, Taylor has some very powerful enemies (particularly one who hopes to soon become a bishop) there, too. His few real friends are found among the regulars in Galway’s pubs. But most dangerous for the church, the Garda, and Galway’s criminals, Jack Taylor is still a do-gooder always willing to rush to the defense of those who can’t defend themselves.But now members of the Garda are being assassinated one-by-one, and it looks like Taylor is somehow connected to the deaths. The killers are three young sociopaths who have bonded over their shared desire to destroy what little mental stability Taylor still has, and killing his ex-colleagues is just part of their longer-term plan. As the number of assassinations mount, the police turn to Taylor for help – much to the consternation of both sides.But as usual in a Ken Bruen novel, the main plot is not the most important thing about Galway Girl; Bruen’s novels are more about atmosphere and character development than they are the main plot. Along the way, there are sometimes so many side plots being explored and resolved that the reader can easily forget what the main plot even is. Jack Taylor has a reputation on the streets (and he tries to make his meager living as one of Galway’s few private detectives) so it is common for him to receive visits from people afraid to go to the police for help. And, especially when those needing help are women or children, Taylor is always ready to drop everything else to see what he can do to help.Bottom Line: Galway Girl is Irish noir at its best, a novel in which the city of Galway herself plays as important a role as any of the book’s characters. Surreal and dreamlike at times, the novel often requires a healthy suspension of disbelief to move one of its several plot lines forward, but that’s all just part of the fun for regular Ken Bruen readers. Bruen’s sparse and stylistically-unusual writing style is the icing on this Jack Taylor cake, a book that I particularly recommend to fans of really dark crime fiction.

[lostinalibrary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jack Taylor's best years, if you could call them that, seem to be behind him. The brutal murder of his daughter has left him just barely coping, drowning his sorrow in Jameson and drugs. When Garda ask him to help in a case, he declines. As the body count rises and the dead approach his own doorstep both literally and figuratively, Jack begins to suspect these murders aren't random, that they are meant as a personal message to him. And he is not far wrong because an unholy trinity of killers has come together to wreak revenge and they won't stop until everyone he cares about is dead.Galway Girl, the fifteenth in the Jack Taylor series by Ken Bruen clearly follows another story (or maybe several) in the series, one I haven't read, but I was able to follow the tale easily. It is told from the perspective of both Jack and one of the perpetrators, a woman named Jericho, the Galway girl of the title, whose love of murder and pain goes back a long, long way. Ken Bruen is the master of Irish noir and Galway Girl is an excellent example of the genre. It is dark, violent, almost poetic in its descriptions, suffused with cynicism and black humour, with Jack, the quintessential amoral hero, a loner soaked in booze and personal tragedy. The characters themselves tend to be one-dimensional, black and white representations of good and evil. For those who are not used to noir, this may be off-putting but the short sentences and paragraphs keep the story moving at a frenetic pace and the staccato beat to the dialogue make it highly readable, in fact, well-nigh unputdownable. Thanks to Edelweiss+ and Mysterious Press for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

[rowingrabbit · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Against all odds, Galway’s best known fixer is still alive & kicking. Well…kicking may be an exaggeration. Jack Taylor is in a bit of a funk. All the years of hard living are catching up with him & a recent loss has him in a tailspin.If that weren’t bad enough, people around him are dropping like flies. A lovely young cop who made the mistake of being seen with him, another he used to work with…both were killed in brazen attacks. If he didn’t know better, Jack might think he’s the common denominator. Oh wait…Jack has always been a well read guy so I hope he’s up on his Faulkner because the past has just come roaring back to haunt him. The story picks up on events from book #11 (Green Hell) one of the best in the series IMHO. In this instalment, someone is out to destroy everyone Jack cares about before finishing him off. The reason? Well, that would be telling. But we soon learn why an unlikely trio of killers has painted a target on his back. Jericho is a young Galway girl who’s….uh….a little different (I really don’t want to tick her off). She’s come back to get revenge for a loved one & as far as she’s concerned it’s all Jack’s fault. But she needs help & quickly recruits a couple of locals who have their own bones to pick with the former guard. And so begins a deadly game designed to make him suffer. Let’s face it, Jack doesn’t have a lot of friends left & he’s in no shape to take another emotional hit. But having nothing to lose can be very liberating.Jeez Louise, this one had me looking over MY shoulder, never mind Jack’s. The first “Holy Crap” moment comes at 5% in & the narrative keeps you nervous as you try to anticipate Jericho’s next move. In typical style, the author mixes violence with Jack’s darkly humorous observations on books, sport, politics & Irish culture. It should come across as the story of a bitter man who’s hit rock bottom but Bruen includes small moments that give us a glimmer of hope for his long suffering anti-hero. I had no idea where this was going & I defy any reader to predict how it ends. All I’ll say is if you happen to suffer from ornithophobia you might want to follow Jack’s lead & keep the Jameson nearby. It’s bleak, Irish noir laced with the blackest of humour. In other words, it’s Bruen. So I’ll end with this. Jack, we have to chat. I love you like a brother & worry about you between books. But after the events of this one, I’m rethinking our relationship. Maybe we should keep it casual. You know, like infrequent pen pals or something ?

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Oh, Jack, Jack, Jack. I think you're slipping. Think maybe the large amounts of Jameson you inbibe may finally be doing you in. I mean really, when did you get so trusting? You let two sob stories manipulate you. Not good! How do these people manage to find you. Why you are a walking magnet for danger and every psychopath in Galway. God knows, you have had more than your fair share of tragedy and sorrow. You are such a dark, dark man, your saving graces, loyalty to those you love, though not many of them left, the books you read, and the habit you have of wanting to protect the week. You are so flawed, but incredibly interesting, maybe the most interesting character in my reading ouvre.So, I'll be back, but we will never be friends. Bad things happen to those who get too close. See you soon.ARC from Edelweiss.