
When Jack Taylor blew town at the end of The Guards his alcoholism was a distant memory and sober dreams of a new life in London were shining in his eyes. In the opening pages of The Killing of the Tinkers , Jack's back in Galway a year later with a new leather jacket on his back, a pack of smokes in his pocket, a few grams of coke in his waistband, and a pint of Guinness on his mind. So much for new beginnings.Before long he's sunk into his old patterns, lifting his head from the bar only every few days, appraising his surroundings for mere minutes and then descending deep into the alcoholic, drug-induced fugue he prefers to the real world. But a big gypsy walks into the bar one day during a moment of Jack's clarity and changes all that with a simple request. Jack knows the look in this man's eyes, a look of hopelessness mixed with resolve topped off with a quietly simmering rage; he's seen it inthe mirror. Recognizing a kindred soul, Jack agrees to help him, knowing but not admitting that getting involved is going to lead to more bad than good. But in Jack Taylor's world bad and good are part and parcel of the same lost cause, and besides, no one ever accused Jack of having good sense.Ken Bruen wowed critics and readers alike when he introduced Jack Taylor in The Guards ; he'll blow them away with The Killing of the Tinkers , a novel of gritty brilliance that cements Bruen's place among the greats of modern crime fiction.
Publisher:
New York : St. Martin's Minotaur, 2004.
ISBN:
9780312304119
0312304110
0312304110
Characteristics:
244 p. ;,24 cm.


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Add a Commentthis was almost impossible to read as the font was small, and double spaced, unlike any books I have read ( and that's a sizable number, over 600 in last ten years). I quit reading on the second page.
Now I remember why I can't stand to be with a drunk! Whining, self-centered, self-pitying, mother-blaming failures who only acknowledge the damage they do to others by whining on about how much it hurts THEM! Bruen portrays the drunk perfectly but it ain't pleasant. Good plots and fair characterization overall especially with the protagonist (see above).