The Dramatist (Audible Audio Edition) Ken Bruen Gerry O'Brien ISIS Audio Books Books
Download As PDF : The Dramatist (Audible Audio Edition) Ken Bruen Gerry O'Brien ISIS Audio Books Books
The impossible has happened Jack Taylor is living clean and dating a mature woman. Rumour suggests he is even attending mass.
The accidental deaths of two students appear random, tragic events, except that in each case a copy of a book by John Millington Synge is found beneath the body. Jack begins to believe that "The Dramatist", a calculating killer, is out there, enticing him to play. As the case twists and turns, Jack's refuge, the city of Galway, now demands he sacrifice the only love he's maintained, and while Iraq burns, he seems a step away from the abyss.
The Dramatist (Audible Audio Edition) Ken Bruen Gerry O'Brien ISIS Audio Books Books
The Dramatist continues to chronicle the struggles of Jack Taylor, adding depth to Bruen's well drawn character, a fired cop and recovering alcoholic turned half-hearted private investigator in Galway. The prose style established in the companion novels continues here: clean, concise, and forceful. The plot includes a literary twist: Taylor's former (now imprisoned) drug dealer asks him to investigate the death of a college student found with a broken neck, a copy of The Playboy of the Western World under her body.Like the other Jack Taylor novels, the plot is secondary to the drama that unfolds in Taylor's life, and there's plenty of it here, involving his mother, who lives in a dilapidated nursing home, his ex-wife, whose jealous new husband gives Taylor a beating, and the bartender who is one of his only true friends until that relationship sours. Along the way Taylor is suspected of murder, experiences violence at the hands of an extremist group called the Pikemen, and engages in a bit of violence himself while struggling to maintain his precarious sobriety. Then, just when you think nothing worse could happen to poor Jack, there's a sudden, shocking ending that would seem manipulative or forced in the hands of a lesser talent.
The novel moves at such a furious pace you might find yourself stopping now and then to catch your breath. Those breaks provide time to wonder just how much pain Jack can endure -- and whether he'll ever make for himself the life of peace and decency he craves. I can't help cheering for him and at the same time wondering what he'll encounter in the next novel.
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The Dramatist (Audible Audio Edition) Ken Bruen Gerry O'Brien ISIS Audio Books Books Reviews
He's not drinking in this one, which is a relief really, but he still manages to throw up a lot and get badly beaten. He actually does some detecting, but as always a ton of the work is done by other people. As before people give him envelopes of Cash, and women fall for him, and even while sober he does stupid things that end up tragic. Still not sure why I like these, but I do
John Irving said in a recent book that one's reaction to a novel has a lot to do with his frame of mind and that the same reader could have two very different responses to the same novel at different times. I was reminded of that quotation when I finished Ken Bruen's latest. This is the fifth Jack Taylor novel for me-- I got a copy of PRIEST, not yet published in the U. S.-- and I must say that THE DRAMATIST about laid me out. Emily Dickinson, whom Mr. Bruen is fond of quoting, said something to the effect that she could wade whole pools of grief. I thought I can too, but I was up to my neck and drowning in grief in Mr. Bruen's latest tale. Of course Taylor falls off the wagon; often isn't very good at pursuing a case, that is, the case sort of solves itself around him-- is quite capable of breaking the law, himself; isn't very good at relationships; still hates both the Catholic Church and his mother and reads every book in sight.
Perhaps it was that, having read the later Bruen novel, I had no surprises here. I knew, of course, that Taylor's mother would wind up in a nursing home and die there. And I was ready for the ending (at least I thought I was) although it is somewhere beyond despair. About the only decent character in this novel is Taylor's landlady Ms. Bailey. Surely one bird sang while Mr. Bruen was writing this tale of woe.
If you like your novels dark, you'll love Mr. Bruen's latest.
There is some small injustice in describing Ken Bruen's "The Dramatist" as simply "noir". While all of Bruen's writing is bleak - in-your-face crime fiction with no regard for inane political correctness or modern niceties, "The Dramatist" reads like a chainsaw to the gut - an emotional tour de force that will leave fragments of Bruen's broken prose haunting your subconscious weeks after you've turned the last page. Yeah, this is black - Stygian black, about as dark as fiction gets.
Galway ex-Guard Jack Taylor is back, who as a favor to his imprisoned former drug dealer is pulled into the investigation of the death of a college student. The apparently accidental fall down a boarding house staircase, while tragic, looks benign enough. Except for the unexplained volume of Irish playwright J.M. Synge ("A Playboy of the Western World") tucked under her body. But what seems to initially be an unexplained coincidence turns sinister when a similar fate visits another student. As expected from Burke, the mystery of the apparent murders, while compelling, fades a bit into the background under the ferocity and intensity of the irreverent and unrepentant Jack Taylor. And as always, the ridiculously well read Bruen spices this bare-knuckled tale with an eclectic collection of quotes from Synge (as expected), Robert Crais, James Lee Burke, Sean Burke, Matthew Stokoe, and several more. The Irish melancholy and fatalism reads as thick as a Galway sea fret as Taylor lumbers through the crimes and busted love affairs as well, leading to a climax that while fitting with the tone and timbre, nonetheless hit me like a two-by-four between the eyes.
The prolific Bruen continues to write like nobody in the business today. I'll concede, if you enjoy beautiful action hero-type people straight from People Magazine, complete with neat and happy little endings to wrap them up, then Bruen's jagged tales of sparsely written brutality may have you billing OT with your analyst. But if you're looking for that off-the-beaten track maverick who'd prefer to rewrite the genre than follow the pack, get to know this guy.
The Dramatist continues to chronicle the struggles of Jack Taylor, adding depth to Bruen's well drawn character, a fired cop and recovering alcoholic turned half-hearted private investigator in Galway. The prose style established in the companion novels continues here clean, concise, and forceful. The plot includes a literary twist Taylor's former (now imprisoned) drug dealer asks him to investigate the death of a college student found with a broken neck, a copy of The Playboy of the Western World under her body.
Like the other Jack Taylor novels, the plot is secondary to the drama that unfolds in Taylor's life, and there's plenty of it here, involving his mother, who lives in a dilapidated nursing home, his ex-wife, whose jealous new husband gives Taylor a beating, and the bartender who is one of his only true friends until that relationship sours. Along the way Taylor is suspected of murder, experiences violence at the hands of an extremist group called the Pikemen, and engages in a bit of violence himself while struggling to maintain his precarious sobriety. Then, just when you think nothing worse could happen to poor Jack, there's a sudden, shocking ending that would seem manipulative or forced in the hands of a lesser talent.
The novel moves at such a furious pace you might find yourself stopping now and then to catch your breath. Those breaks provide time to wonder just how much pain Jack can endure -- and whether he'll ever make for himself the life of peace and decency he craves. I can't help cheering for him and at the same time wondering what he'll encounter in the next novel.
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