About the Author

Ken Bruen received a doctorate in metaphysics, taught English in South Africa, and then became a crime novelist. The critically acclaimed author of twelve previous Jack Taylor novels and The White Trilogy, he is the recipient of two Barry Awards and two Shamus Awards and has twice been a finalist for the Edgar Award. He lives in Galway, Ireland.

Reviews

Praise for Galway Girl: "Galway Girl is cringeworthy and more, in all the best ways. Even when you anticipate what Taylor or any other character is going to do, you still hope against hope that they won't . . . It is but one indication of the casual power of Bruen's writing that I am already cringing over what might happen in his next Taylor tale, even as I eagerly and impatiently anticipate it."--Bookreporter.com "Prolific Bruen is at the top of his inimitable form here with typical first-person narration, one-line paragraphs, free-flowing Jameson, and almost as much blood...For fans of the series and its protagonist, and readers who admire Jack's devious ways of making things right."--Library Journal "[J]ust as Ireland--the home of my ancestors--has captured my heart, so have Irish writers, and top among them is Ken Bruen . . . Do not miss Galway Girl, a novel that shows Ken Bruen's writing at its finest and Jack Taylor's life at its gruffest."--Criminal Element
Praise for Ken Bruen and the Jack Taylor series: "They don't come much tougher than Ken Bruen's Irish roughneck, Jack Taylor, a man with bad habits who does good despite himself."--Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review, on In The Galway Silence "[Bruen] writes like an angel, a fearsome one such as he describes here, but one that you will want to keep and have close to you...A stunning experience from beginning to end, In the Galway Silence surpasses even Bruen's usual superlative standards."--Bookreporter on In The Galway Silence "Bruen's enormous strength as a stylist. Stripped, bare, naked, it never fails to deliver a solid, devastating punch when one is required. Bruen has even invented a way to convey what a reader new to the series really should know in less than a page and fewer than two hundred words. As November comes around and Jack Taylor makes his annual reappearance, I usually wonder if this time Jack will at last be relieved of his Sisyphean tasks and rest. While I wish that Jack could at last find peace, I am always ready to accompany him on his endless circling of the sinkhole of despair."--Reviewing the Evidence on In The Galway Silence "Jack, as fans of this long-running series know all too well, has a gift for blarney, for plain speaking, for poetic melancholy, for downing shots of Jameson's without ice, and for pregnant one-word paragraphs. . . . A tough, tender, sorrowful tour of the Bruen aquarium, with all manner of fantastic creatures swimming in close proximity and touching only the fellow creatures they want to devour. Just don't get too attached to the supporting cast or read this installment just before a trip to Galway."--Kirkus Reviews on In The Galway Silence "Powered by nonstop action and acerbic wit, [In the Galway Silence] is--like the pints of Guinness that the saga's existentially tortured, pill-popping antihero consumes on a daily basis--unfathomably dark. [Jack Taylor is] a deeply flawed but endearing character whose suffering is both tragic and transformative." --Publishers Weekly on In The Galway Silence "[Bruen] writes short, rat-a-tat sentences that suggest a meeting of Samuel Beckett and Ogden Nash."―Chicago Tribune, on The Ghosts of Galway "Nobody writes like Ken Bruen, with his ear for lilting Irish prose and his taste for the kind of gallows humor heard only at the foot of the gallows. The Emerald Lie is pure Bruen, with its verbal tics, weird typography and unorthodox wordplay."--New York Times Book Review, on The Emerald Lie "Taylor is a classic figure: an ex-cop turned seedy private eye . . . The book's pleasure comes from listening to Taylor's eloquent rants, studded with references to songs and books. His voice is wry and bittersweet, but somehow always hopeful."--Seattle Times, on Green Hell "Bruen's voice is unmistakable: finely chiseled paragraphs that more closely resemble verse than prose . . . Bleaker than David Goodis, colder than Derek Raymond, and funnier and more violent than Richard Stark, Ken Bruen is among the most original and innovative noir voices of the last two decades."--Los Angeles Review of Books, on Headstone "One of the most sublime pleasures in crime fiction is reading a new book by Ken Bruen. For almost twenty years now, he's been delighting mystery and noir audiences with his stunning, poetic books of the shadowy side of life . . . This is real writing, the likes of which we are blessed to behold."--Strand Magazine, on Purgatory "No one writes crime novels quite like Ken Bruen . . . I picture Bruen not so much writing as transcribing the words of a sweet fallen angel that are whispered feverishly into his ear."--Bookreporter, on The Emerald Lie "[A] dark and often hilarious . . . series."―Toronto Star, on The Ghosts of Galway "Bruen gets more done in a paragraph, a word, even a fragment of a word, than most writers get in an entire four-hundred-page doorstop. If his prose was any sharper, your eyeballs would bleed."--Mystery Scene, on Green Hell "The Godfather of the modern Irish crime novel."--Irish Independent, on Green Hell