Jack Taylor Mystery Series by Ken Bruen.
Relax & read - mystery list descriptions do not reveal major plot points.

Character's Personality:  Fiftyish Jack Taylor is a memorable character:  manic, unstable, highly emotional, both sentimental and cynical, deeply affected by music, extremely well-read in everything from Irish poetry to American crime novels, prone to violence, possessing a keen sense of black humor, filled with guilt and self-loathing and self-pity, extremely witty, curious and perceptive about others, and self-aware.

However, he admits that he's compulsively selfish: an addict who trashes everyone close to him who might interfere with his need to self-medicate.  He wants to drug himself into oblivion to escape his emotions. He feels a lot of guilt for harming people, but he keeps doing it nonetheless, which makes him a bit much to take after awhile. A typical male mystery hero, he dislikes authority.  See also the Harry Bosch mystery series.

Here's a sample of Jack's personality from some dialog between him and Father Malachy on page 264 of The Guards: 

He said, "I'll have to go, I'm due on the links in an hour."
"Gee, the Lord is pretty demanding."
He gave me the ecclesiastical look, said, "You never had a bit of reverence, Jack."
"Oh, I do. I just don't revere the things you do."

Character's Occupation: Private investigator (ex-cop)

Character's Culture / Ethnicity: Irish

Character - Other Notable Traits: He once served with "the Guards" or the Garda, the police force of the Republic of Ireland but got kicked off for pulling over and then punching out a drunk politician. 

He's an alcoholic and addict (you name it) of epic proportions with no pretensions of being in "recovery." Obviously he drinks to avoid painful emotions but it's never really explained why he does this except that he had his beloved father die several years back and he's been left with a cold, manipulative hypocrite of a mother.

Location and Time Period: Contemporary Galway, Ireland

Mystery Subgenre: Private investigator

Objectionable Material: Profanity, extreme violence, child abuse themes

Other Supporting Characters:

• Bill Cassell - underworld friend of Jack's who arranges assassinations, protection
• Cathy - English singer and friend of Jack's, married to Jeff
• Clancy - police superintendent, once Jack's partner in the guards, now an enemy
• Cody - man in his twenties, eager private-eye wannabe and sidekick to Jack as of Priest.
• Flood, Brendan - ex-guard, now very religious, gives info to Jack on cases
• Jack Taylor - ex-guard and private investigator, series protagonist
• Jeff - bartender, friend of Jack's, husband to Cathy
• Keegan – English cop friend of Jack's as of The Killing of the Tinkers; an extravagantly coarse, violent, and hyper-energetic sidekick.  Kind of a British Clete Purcell.
• Malachy, Father – Cranky local priest and best friend to Jack's mother
• Ridge – aka Brid Nic an Iomaire. Abrasive lesbian ban garda (policewoman) and friend of Jack's as of The Magdelen Martyrs.

Series Description: (brought to you by kat impatientreader.com)  These are striking and highly original crime novels with an unforgettable main character, but they may also form one of the strangest mystery series I've ever read because of the de-emphasis on plotting. Typically an investigation tenuously opens at the beginning of each book.  It then fades into the background, referred to only occasionally when the narrative needs a hint of structure. The other 90% of the action is Jack shambling around in the flaming ruins of his personal life, stopping at the pub to exchange dialog and anecdotes with his fellow drunks.

Bruen is a tremendously gifted writer with considerable strengths in dialog and character interaction. When he gets Jack talking in first-person, you can hear the Irish accents start up in your mind. While the tone is dark, the dialog is often laugh-out-loud funny.  The character interactions reveal volumes about the relationship of one person to another in only a few words or a small detail that Jack notices.  On the strength of these two things alone, the series is compulsively readable.

Then there's the actual investigation -- of minor importance next to Jack trying to  weather the consequences he brings down on himself in his personal life. Often the "mystery" gets solved or abandoned without much involvement from Jack.  The overall bleakness approaches James Lee Burke territory, and the violence is up there with Vachss and Ghelfi. Be warned.

I started with Priest, and moved on to The Guards.  By the time I got to The Killing of the Tinkers (thought of by many as particularly good), Jack was starting to come across like the freakin' Angel of Death, bringing annihilation upon innocent and evil alike, and I had to take a break from the series.  But I still recommend it as fast-paced and compulsively readable.

Series List: Purple Copyright Date  = I've read it. Title links go to Amazon.com product pages.

1. The Guards (2001). Jack, newly kicked out of the Garda, gets hired by a beautiful woman to investigate the supposed suicide of her teenage daughter. Will Jack get inappropriately involved with his client?  Well, ... is the Pope Catholic? Meanwhile he has a friend whose psychopathic vigilantism is getting completely out of control. An involving read.
2. The Killing of the Tinkers (2002) - Macavity Award. Jack gets hired by Sweeper, the leader of a tinker (gypsy) clan, to find out who is killing the young men in their community. Sweeper is a memorable figure of Biblical dignity and menace.  Jack, on the other hand, sits around in a house provided by Sweeper for weeks, doing nothing to earn his keep.  Instead he spends money on drugs and clothes, has a messy romance, and lectures the reader about books while more young men get murdered.  He also ignores solid advice from trustworthy sources. It's enough to make you shake your head in frustration and say, "Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!" A dark, violent, powerful read.
3. The Magdalen Martyrs (2003). Bill Cassell calls in Jack's debt from the previous book, ordering him to track down an old woman associated with the notorious Magdalen convent at which unwed teenage mothers were worked like slaves by sadistic nuns.  Does Jack get right on the job for the greatly feared crime lord? Being Jack, he gets completely distracted spending his advance on drugs, booze, books, and clothes.  Meanwhile, a foppish man hires Jack to prove that his party-girl stepmother murdered his rich father. Does Jack take his money and forget all about him?  What do you think?  This is an involving read in spite of Jack's behavior towards Bill Cassell. (The word "appalling" comes to mind!)  Recommended.
4. The Dramatist (2004). Jack must track down a criminal in Dublin responsible for killing the sister of an imprisoned drug dealer.  He also gets involved with former lover Ann Henderson, now in an abusive marriage.
5. Priest (2006). Jack gets sprung from a mental institution. Back on the streets of Galway, he looks into the gruesome decapitation of a child-molesting priest as a favor to cranky Father Malachy who fears being the next victim. Jack also helps Ridge deal with a stalker (in a memorably over-the-top way), and acquires an eager partner in his investigation: a twenty-something man named Cody who wants a father-figure. Again, a powerful, involving read, but I found the events at the very end to be manipulative.
6. Cross (2007). Jack, considering a move to America, helps Ridge to tackle a gruesome murder case in which one family member is crucified and another burned alive.
7. Sanctuary (2008). Jack receives a mysterious list of soon-to-be murder victims from a killer who seems to know him well. 

Other Books by Ken Bruen:
Inspector Brant Series -
1. A White Arrest (1998)
2. Taming the Alien (2000)
3. The McDead (2000)
4. Blitz: or Brant Hits the Blues (2002)
5. Vixen (2003)
6. Calibre (2006)
7. Ammunition (2007)

Stand-alone Novels -
Shades of Grace (1993)
Martyrs (1994)
Her Last Call to Louis MacNeice (1997)
Rilke on Black (1997)
The Hackman Blues (1997)
London Boulevard (2001)
Dispatching Baudelaire (2004)
Bust (2006)
American Skin (2006)
Slide (2007)
The Max (2008)
Once Were Cops (2008)  Return to Index of Mystery Series Lists

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