The Barnes & Noble Review
In Irish crime writer Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor novel (The Guards, The Killing of the Tinkers, et al.), the irascible ex-Galway policeman has been -- amazingly -- clean and sober for six months. But when his former cocaine dealer, now serving out a six-year sentence in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison, contacts him to ask a favor, Taylor reluctantly agrees -- and soon finds himself matching wits with a serial killer who has a thing for 19th-century Irish dramatist John Millington Synge.
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Two weeks before Stewart (Taylor's coke dealer) was busted, his 20-year old sister was found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs. The police ruled it a "misadventure," but Stewart thinks differently and asks Taylor to look into it. Upon further investigation, Taylor learns that a book of Synge's collected works was found under the body. When another young woman -- also possessing a Synge collection -- is found dead at the bottom of a staircase, Taylor knows he's onto something. But as he closes in on the killer, reality intervenes: An old love interest resurfaces and the health of his ailing mother deteriorates…
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Genre fans who enjoy pull-no-punches noir thrillers that are as darkly comic as they are brutally realistic -- such as Charlie Huston's Six Bad Things, Robert Ferrigno's The Wake-Up, or Will Staeger's Painkiller -- should definitely check out Bruen's Jack Taylor novels, especially this one, a scathing blast of righteous, no-holds-barred Irish crime fiction. Pint of Guinness Extra Stout not included. Paul Goat Allen
The Dramatist (Jack Taylor Series #4)
Narrated by Michael Deehy
Ken BruenUnabridged — 4 hours, 48 minutes
The Dramatist (Jack Taylor Series #4)
Narrated by Michael Deehy
Ken BruenUnabridged — 4 hours, 48 minutes
Overview
Seems impossible, but Jack Taylor is sober-off booze, pills, powder, and nearly off cigarettes, too. The main reason he's been able to keep clean: his dealer's in jail, which leaves Jack without a source. When that dealer calls him to Dublin and asks a favor in the soiled, sordid visiting room of Mountjoy Prison, Jack wants to tell him to take a flying leap. But he doesn't-can't, because the dealer's sister is dead, and the guards have called it “death by misadventure.”
The dealer knows that can't be true and begs Jack to have a look, check around, see what he can find out. It's exactly what Jack does, with varying levels of success, to make a living. But he's reluctant, maybe because of who's asking or maybe because of the bad feeling growing in his gut.
Never one to give in to bad feelings or common sense, Jack agrees to the favor, though he can't possibly know the shocking, deadly consequences he has set in motion. But he and everyone he holds dear will find out soon, sooner than anyone knows, in the lean and lethal fourth entry in Ken Bruen's award-winning Jack Taylor series.
Editorial Reviews
Last seen in Bruen's The Magdalen Martyrs (2004), Irish detective Jack Taylor is sober and hating it in his stellar fourth outing. Things are looking up for the well-worn detective-at least until the apparently accidental death of the sister of his drug dealer, who's now in jail. As Taylor pursues the well-read killer in Dublin, he gets involved in the life of an old flame, Ann Henderson, and her abusive husband. A group of shadowy pike-wielding vigilantes adds extra spice to the mix. By now, readers know the Bruen formula of the downward spiral, but there's no denying the effectiveness of the tough dialogue, the crisp scenes and Taylor's weary, crumpled-jacket appeal. Nor can many writers in any genre evoke a seedy urban Ireland as well as Bruen. Few, too, can continue to deliver interesting stories and even more interesting character studies. With a riveting mystery and a deftly rendered protagonist, Bruen recaptures the immediacy and the impact of the first two novels in the series (The Guards and The Killing of the Tinkers). (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.\
Galway's feistiest private eye (The Killing of Tinkers, 2004, etc.), continuing his war with practically everybody, is-you won't believe this-sober. After his six months on the wagon, everyone who knows Jack Taylor's storied fondness for Jamison is amazed. Not all of them are happy. Father Malachy, whose perverse fondness for Jack's virago of a mother is matched only by his hatred of Jack, is chagrined to see his prophecy of disaster for Jack so completely thwarted. In fact, Jack is drug-free as well, though he acknowledges the happenstance involved: "My dealer got busted." It's through his jailed dealer Stewart that Jack turns to sleuthing again. Stewart's sister has been found with her neck broken at the bottom of a staircase along with a copy of J.M. Synge's best-known play. Accidental death, says the Garda Siochana. Not likely, says Stewart. A bright, alert 20-year-old whose system was as free of booze and drugs as Jack's doesn't take that kind of fatal tumble. Jack agrees with the Garda but hires on anyway. When a second young female dies in a fall with a second copy of The Playboy of the Western World pressed beneath her body, Jack changes sides. There's a weirdo out there with Synge on the brain and murder in his heart. If Jack can only stay sober long enough, he plans to ring down his curtain. Signature Irish noir, dark as it gets.\
Ken Bruen is hard to resist, with his aching Irish heart, silvery tongue and bleak noir sensibility…[Bruen] writes with extraordinary delicacy about a man driven to acts of violence out of wild grief and fierce sense of guilt.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
“[Bruen's] Jack Taylor series is Grade-A Galway Noir…Bruen provides an insightful tour of a fast-changing Ireland” —Richard Lipez, The Washington Post
“Bruen's tommy-gun prose, lacerating dialogue and hard-boiled world view combine here, as before, to provide entertainment of high order in dealing with low instincts. Forget all gauzy notions of the Emerald Isle—this stuff is black Irish.” —Ron Givens, New York Daily News
“Bruen's books are always well worth the effort.” —Harper Barnes, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“It's Taylor himself, dangerous, disgraced cop, that we want to read about.…If you haven't discovered Bruen yet, what are you waiting for?” —Jane Dickinson, Rocky Mountain News
“You'll want to pray at the stunning conclusions of The Dramatist…Bruen's talent shines.” —Michelle Ross, Cleveland Plain Dealer
“The same great mix of curmudgeonly observations and unpredictable cultural references that has won Bruen a devoted cadre of fans.” —Booklist
“There is a darkness about Bruen's Ireland that never lifts. The spare writing is brutal in its depiction of modern depression, social malaise, and total lack of hope.” —Library Journal
Gerry O’Brien narrates this bleak installment in the Jack Taylor series in a lovely Irish brogue. Finding himself in the midst of multiple murders and a vigilante group called the Pikemen, Jack keeps his tenuous grip on sobriety and a severely restricted use of nicotine while trying to solve the murders. As delivered by O’Brien, Jack’s curmudgeonly observations and fickle cultural references build a seedy picture of urban Ireland today. O’Brien’s characterizations make characters, their relationships to Jack, and the gritty dialogue come together to build a picture of Jack’s fragmented life. O’Brien delivers the novel’s sad ending unemotionally, but listeners will wonder if there’s any way Jack can come back from the edge. S.C.A. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169521504 |
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| Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2010 |
| Series: | Jack Taylor Series , #4 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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