Green hell

Book Cover
Average Rating
Author
Publisher
The Mysterious Press, an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc
Publication Date
[2015?]
Language
English

Description

The award-winning crime writer Ken Bruen, called “the best-kept literary secret in Ireland” by the Independent, is as joyously unapologetic in his writing as he is wickedly poetic, mixing high and low with hypnotic mastery. In the previous book in the series, Purgatory, ex-cop Jack Taylor had finally turned his life around, only to be taunted back into fighting Galway’s corruption by a twisted serial killer named C33. In the new novel Green Hell, Bruen’s dark angel of a protagonist has again hit rock bottom: one of his best friends is dead, the other has stopped speaking to him; he has given up battling his addiction to alcohol and pills; and his firing from the Irish national police, the Guards, is ancient history. But Jack isn’t about to embark on a self-improvement plan. Instead, he has taken up a vigilante case against a respected professor of literature at the University of Galway who has a violent habit his friends in high places are only too happy to ignore. And when Jack rescues a preppy American student on a Rhodes Scholarship from a couple of kid thugs, he also unexpectedly gains a new sidekick, who abandons his thesis on Beckett to write a biography of Galway’s most magnetic rogue.Between pub crawls and violent outbursts, Jack’s vengeful plot against the professor soon spirals toward chaos. Enter Emerald, an edgy young Goth who could either be the answer to Jack’s problems, or the last ripped stitch in his undoing. Ireland may be known as a “green Eden,” but in Jack Taylor’s world, the national color has a decidedly lethal sheen.

More Details

ISBN
9780802123565

Discover More

Also in this Series

Checking series information...

Published Reviews

Booklist Review

American Boru Kennedy is in Ireland to write his dissertation on Beckett, but a trip to Galway and an encounter with Jack Taylor, the voluble, irascible, hard-drinking former Garda, prompt a change of plans. He'll forget Beckett and write a book about Taylor instead. What his research shows is exactly what Taylor has been telling readers in previous books: almost anyone who ever cared about Jack is dead or has come to loathe him (Purgatory, 2013). But fueled by Jameson, Guinness, Xanax, coke, and vitriol, Jack abides, and his current goal is to see that a preening literature professor at the University of Galway pays for his predations against female students. But nothing in Jack's life is ever straightforward or immediate, and it falls to Emerald, an elfin goth and high-functioning psychopath, to settle scores with the depraved prof. Jack's existential howls at life in modern Ireland continue, along with admiring nods to favorite authors and musicians. But here's hoping that Emerald, who is even more willful than Jack, returns. Green Hell isn't the best Taylor novel, but loyal fans of Bruen's special brand of hard-boiled angst will find it a pleasure.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Powered by Syndetics

Publisher's Weekly Review

American Rhodes scholar Boru Kennedy, who narrates much of Shamus Award-winner Bruen's sketchy 11th Jack Taylor novel (after 2013's Purgatory), has come to Galway to write a treatise on Samuel Beckett. When muggers start kicking in Boru's teeth, Jack comes to the rescue, and Boru's interest shifts to the brooding former member of the Garda, the Irish national police, as a subject of study. Boru becomes Jack's Boswell, involved in his effort to take down a Galway university professor who's getting away with violent crimes. About half the book consists of Jack's trademark reveries on rage and drinking, his comments on binge-watching TV crime shows, and name-dropping mystery writers. In one metafictional scene, Jack buys an unnamed Ken Bruen a drink in a bar. New readers might do better to start with the first in the series, The Guards (2001), though dedicated fans of Irish noir will spot favorite touchstones of the saga. Agent: Lukas Ortiz, Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Powered by Syndetics

Kirkus Book Review

Somebody really ought to write Galway ex-cop Jack Taylor's biography, but trouble erupts when a fledging American academic appoints himself the one. Brian Boru Kennedy has come to Ireland to research a dissertation on Samuel Beckett. Instead, he falls in with Jack, who, in the course of unfolding the particulars of his life, tells him about Anthony de Burgo, a media darling of a professor and novelist whose only flaw is imprisoning and beating a series of women within an inch of their lives. In the fullness of time, Aine, a returning student who's taken up with Boru, falls under de Burgo's spell, and things predictably take a turn for the worse. The first half of this tale, ostensibly Boru's draft biography of Taylor, is structured so completely as a series of mordant two-line jokes (Boru: "Will there beahviolence?" Jack: "We can live in hope") that the appended "miscellaneous notes, quotes, chapter headings, descriptions" aren't much more miscellaneous than the main event. In the second half, Jack takes over the narration to tell how he teamed up, more or less, with a goth girl named Emerald McKee to bring de Burgo to justice. Jack's voice sounds a lot like Boru's, and his half of the story is equally predictable, though it ends much more satisfyingly. This meeting of "a wild Irish fucked-up addict" with "a WASP wannabe alcoholic" is neither the greatest nor the least of Jack's scalding adventures, but it may be the most ritualistic of them all. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Powered by Syndetics

Booklist Reviews

American Boru Kennedy is in Ireland to write his dissertation on Beckett, but a trip to Galway and an encounter with Jack Taylor, the voluble, irascible, hard-drinking former Garda, prompt a change of plans. He'll forget Beckett and write a book about Taylor instead. What his research shows is exactly what Taylor has been telling readers in previous books: almost anyone who ever cared about Jack is dead or has come to loathe him (Purgatory, 2013). But fueled by Jameson, Guinness, Xanax, coke, and vitriol, Jack abides, and his current goal is to see that a preening literature professor at the University of Galway pays for his predations against female students. But nothing in Jack's life is ever straightforward or immediate, and it falls to Emerald, an elfin goth and "high-functioning psychopath," to settle scores with the depraved prof. Jack's existential howls at life in modern Ireland continue, along with admiring nods to favorite authors and musicians. But here's hoping that Emerald, who is even more willful than Jack, returns. Green Hell isn't the best Taylor novel, but loyal fans of Bruen's special brand of hard-boiled angst will find it a pleasure. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.
Powered by Content Cafe

Publishers Weekly Reviews

American Rhodes scholar Boru Kennedy, who narrates much of Shamus Award–winner Bruen's sketchy 11th Jack Taylor novel (after 2013's Purgatory), has come to Galway to write a treatise on Samuel Beckett. When muggers start kicking in Boru's teeth, Jack comes to the rescue, and Boru's interest shifts to the brooding former member of the Garda, the Irish national police, as a subject of study. Boru becomes Jack's Boswell, involved in his effort to take down a Galway university professor who's getting away with violent crimes. About half the book consists of Jack's trademark reveries on rage and drinking, his comments on binge-watching TV crime shows, and name-dropping mystery writers. In one metafictional scene, Jack buys an unnamed Ken Bruen a drink in a bar. New readers might do better to start with the first in the series, The Guards (2001), though dedicated fans of Irish noir will spot favorite touchstones of the saga. Agent: Lukas Ortiz, Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency. (July)

[Page ]. Copyright 2014 PWxyz LLC

Copyright 2014 PWxyz LLC
Powered by Content Cafe

Reviews from GoodReads

Loading GoodReads Reviews.

Staff View

Loading Staff View.