WELCOME TO JACK'S TAYLOR'S CRAZY LIFE: KEN BRUEN'S GALWAY'S EDGE

A Jack Taylor novel from Ken Bruen has become a highlight in my reading year. The author's prose style, performing on the line between poetry and punk rock, gives voice to one of the most moral of amoral protagonists whose misadventures dive him into the darkest parts of society and have tainted him with a touch of madness. It all results into the literary equivalent to sipping a smooth, stiff whiskey. Bruen serves up one of his finest in Galway's Edge.

As with many of the most engaging Jack Taylor novels it connects him with the Catholic Church. Father Richmond, a trouble shooter for the Vatican who I hope Bruen finds a way to bring back, hires the Galway investigator to deal with Father Kevin Wheeler. The priest is a member of Edge, a vigilante group that is getting out of hand. Jack is asked to tell Wheeler to leave the group and do something about it if he doesn't.

Wheeler refuses, but before Jack can act he is murdered the next day. Soon other Edge members are killed. Jack finds connections to a hedge fund billionaire and starts out for his brand of justice. As he closes in over the months., he takes jobs involving a stolen crucifix, a rising star priest with sex abuse accusations, a cat killer, and a man who wants Jack to kill him on his birthday,

These smaller cases create an odd yet serviceable structure to Bruen's episodic plotting he has developed in the series that feels tight though loose. Over time, the books have become less about Jack finding the killer as much as him struggling to find his place in the world he inhabits that grows darker and our own does as well. The story occurs between late 2022 and summer of 2023, often addressing world events, reminding us of leaders and institutions we rely on becoming more ineffectual, allowing the powerful and corrupt to execute their plans out in the open. Does a private eye have a place if there is nothing to uncover when evil is in plain sight?

Ironically, Bruen gives us a more upbeat tone, admittedly a low bar in the Jack Taylor universe, as our hero finds and clings to his own edge like we all need to nowadays. He finds his place or at least accepts being resigned to it, through the jobs and attempting to take down Father Wheeler's killer. It all accumulates into the last dark comic line delivered to that birthday boy.

Galway's Edge is one of the finest Jack Taylor books. It not only delivers what we like about the books, but reminds us why we like them. After two decades, Ken hasn't lost his own edge.