Oh, how I’ve missed Jack Taylor. This book is just what the librarian ordered. I really enjoy Jack’s cynicism, his lamenting the changes in Galway, his irreverent relationship with religion, his strength resisting Jameson and a pint, and his ability to overcome. In this book, if something could go wrong, it does. Changes are afoot for Jack. Let’s hope his dreams work out.

Ken Bruen’s Cross—the sixth outing in a series featuring Jack Taylor, an ex-Garda who moonlights as a maladroit private eye—finds our hero in the usual Galway gutter, and by book’s end, as is the pattern with this mystery series, Taylor manages to nearly claw his way out before the certain cruelty of existence kicks his teeth down his throat and sends him tumbling back into the mud and the blood and the beer. (Yes, this is my idea of pitching a book.)Never have I ever been to Ireland, but there

Description: Jack Taylor brings death and pain to everyone he loves. His only hope of redemption - his surrogate son, Cody - is lying in hospital in a coma. At least he still has Ridge, his old friend from the Guards, though theirs is an unorthodox relationship. When she tells him that a boy has been crucified in Galway city, he agrees to help her search for the killer.Jack's investigations take him to many of his old haunts where he encounters ghosts, dead and living. Everyone wants something f...

I missed Jack Taylor GalwayThe rain The bars The death Redemption The books and the music And his daily struggle

A slightly more creepy or almost paranormal element to this one. And, for the first time, Jack metes out justice and doesn't feel guilty about it. But there's a chance someone will hold it over him; only time (and the next 6 books) will tell.

Irish noir. Jack, a washed up alcoholic detective, is asked to help solve a case of a boy murdered and crucified. As he begins digging around, a second case appears...rich people asking him to find out who is kidnapping dogs in their neighborhood. Jack pawns off the dog case on an even more alcoholic friend in attempt to give him a reason to live, and proceeds to bumble around determined to get to the bottom of his crucifixion case.Jack is an extraordinarily well written character, which makes t...

Cross is sixth in the Jack Taylor series by Ken Bruen. As I've said before, read the series in order and do not expect the TV series episode to be an exact duplicate of the book. Best to treat the book and the TV episode as separate entities to prevent disappointment. In Cross, Jack Taylor has become more political than usual and has to process yet another loss in his life. On top of this, he is asked to investigate a crucifixion that occurred in Galway. He doesn't take it as seriously as he per...

Cross by Ken Bruen is the 6th book in The “Jack Taylor” seriesJack Taylor is a character with an abundance of flaws, whom is fighting ongoing additions. This again is a totally enthralling and engaging book, which to me is all about the dialogueSuch lines as "My father would have turned in his grave to know the day had come when we paid for water on an island surrounded by the bloody stuff and lashed by rain most days of the year”You can easily get caught up with this series

I normally love Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor novels. They are noir with an Irish brogue and feature a great protagonist in Jack Taylor. Alcoholic and self destructive, Taylor struggles to keep it together while doing the odd detective job for friends and acquaintances on the mean streets of Galway, Ireland. Be forewarned, these are not mysteries and, truth be told, there's not much detecting going on either. You read a Jack Taylor book for the one liners, cultural observations, and to savor the dialo...

I could only do so much anguish before I went searching for a ropeDamn, I love this series.No review here, just a bunch of spots I highlighted.I've seen many men, women too, wrecked by booze, their faces a testament to all that hell has to offer, but this guy, he was like those photos of Bukowski in his last days. Not good. Beneath the ruin, I'd hazard he was only thirty or so, but the red eyes had seen things that a century of hurt might accomplish.Paddy is one of the strongest whiskeys and the...

I cannot get enough of Jack Taylor. This series by Ken Bruen is so darned good. Jack is vulnerable, a reforming alcoholic, a haunted man. So many events in his life since being kicked out of the Guards have left him in a bad place. Cannot say too much - so many threads run through this series and I don't want to spoil it for any reader who is thinking about embarking on it. In Cross a boy has been crucified in Galway City. People are shocked; the Irish Church is scandalised - and no further acti...

When a young man is brutally murdered by crucifixion, Guard and quasi-friend Ridge, comes to Jack for help. Off the booze and limiting his drug habit, Jack answers Ridge's plea; not only could cracking the case give Ridge an unlikely career bump in the Guards but also provide Jack with some purpose following the murder of his 'son' Cody. The famed love/hate relationship between the two continues but softens around the sharpened edges somewhat further adding to their already complex chemistry as

Cross is book 6 in the Jack Taylor series and Jack is in a particularly dark place dealing still with repercussions of the earlier books and the effects of trying to remain sober. The crimes are particularly brutal and somewhat senseless which make them seem even worse. The book is just steeped in hopelessness even right to the ending where it seems like things should be looking up for Jack with a new start. There is also a side plot here that involves animal cruelty, which I had to sort of skim...

I realize that when you choose to make your hero a broken down, washed up alcoholic that you have to devote some of your narrative to that condition. But do I have to read about it on every single page? I've had enough of Jack Taylor's fight to resist the next drink. When Bruen actually spends time on plot development and character interactions, I find his story quite entertaining, but there is far too much time spent talking about all the kinds of alcohol Jack will not drink today.

I'm becoming more and more torn about how to rate the Jack Taylor books. I just keep going for four stars for each one. I am enjoying them, some probably more than others but I'm not sure if I can say which ones are better than other ones. Maybe this is going to be a bit of a spoiler, but there are certain things that keep happening in the books that are making them slightly predictable in ways that should be unpredictable. I'll give this one credit, it doesn't go for the same sort of ending tha...

Season 3 opens with a young man found crucified, and Kate asks Jack to meet with the victim's mother, who is not satisfied with the direction of the police inquiry. Jack reluctantly allows Kate's cousin Darragh to assist him in the investigation, getting them all involved too deep.

Jack Taylor is changing. Shattered by the shooting of Cody, the young man who came to him for a chance, Jack feels for Cody like a man would for his natural son. Cody is comatose in hospital and even though he didn't pull the trigger, Jack feels responsible for Cody's fate. This has given him a real reason and he's given up drinking, smoking and drugs. Jack's not pretending - it's hard, and he's not found an exactly “normal” way of resisting a drink, but he's serious and he's really trying. As u...

Like Galway's cold driving rain blowing horizontal from the North Atlantic, Ken Bruen's prose assaults - relentless, penetrating, no immunity. But just when you're sure he's taken the reader to the limits of despair, Bruen pulls you back in like a Jameson's and a pint of the black. Not that there's any redemption, of course - not in Bruen's vernacular - as you know that your reprieve is fleeting, and that by the time the next chapter turns, this master of contemporary noir will have you convince...

I had to fasten my seatbelt a couple of times this intense page turning read. The trinity of Jack Taylor's colloquial Gaelic precious words from his childhood, his superb sarcastic witticisms and his struggle to carry his increasingly heavy load of guilt and not drink while investigating noir crime intense.

Jack Taylor can't catch a break; everything keeps turning south in his life. After finally embracing a new protege in the previous novel, and opening up his heart to him, he had to face reality again when his new friend was shot down an put in a coma. Now Jack has to deal with the pain of losing another close person in his life and with the brutal fear of finding out the reason behind the shooting and whether it was caused by his previous actions or not. Of course, while this is going on, he is