In the newest novel in Bruen's series, ex-cop turned private eye Jack Taylor is pulled out of his quiet new life on a farm by three mysteries that soon prove dangerously linked.
Taylor’s life is a train wreck that you cannot help but watch, in large part because of Bruen’s beautifully bruised prose, which careens across the page in a stream-of-consciousness, where Bruen and Taylor (the lives of both seem conjoined at times) maintain at least a finger on the wheel, if not a grasp. The result has been — and remains — one of contemporary genre fiction’s most unique series ... The narrative also takes several side alleys into music, literature, politics and social commentary, all of which are interesting and diverting (as opposed to distracting) as the plots continue to move along at Taylor’s staggering pace toward an ending that is foreshadowed but nevertheless chilling.
The sheer number of individual plot threads means that none are fully developed, and their resolutions come too easily. The result is a readable but not particularly memorable entry in an otherwise strong series.
Galway private eye Jack Taylor finds himself awash in miracles, and not the good kind ... Another heady Irish stew spiked with wayward epigrams, one-word paragraphs, and lots and lots of Jamesons. Sláinte.
