Green Hell
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- $169.00
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- $169.00
Descripción editorial
"The Godfather of the modern Irish crime novel . . . writes in machine gun fashion . . . reminiscent of the work of Raymond Chandler and Peter Cheyenne." —The Irish Times
In Green Hell, Bruen's dark angel of a protagonist has hit rock bottom: one of his best friends is dead, the other has stopped speaking to him; he has given up battling his addiction to alcohol and pills; and his firing from the Irish national police, the Guards, is ancient history. But Jack isn't about to embark on a self-improvement plan. Instead, he has taken up a vigilante case against a respected professor of literature at the University of Galway who has a violent habit his friends in high places are only too happy to ignore. And when Jack rescues a preppy American student on a Rhodes Scholarship from a couple of kid thugs, he also unexpectedly gains a new sidekick, who abandons his thesis on Beckett to write a biography of Galway's most magnetic rogue.
Between pub crawls and violent outbursts, Jack's vengeful plot against the professor soon spirals toward chaos. Enter Emerald, an edgy young Goth who could either be the answer to Jack's problems, or the last ripped stitch in his undoing . . .
"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." —The Seattle Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
American Rhodes scholar Boru Kennedy, who narrates much of Shamus Award winner Bruen's sketchy 11th Jack Taylor novel (after 2013's Purgatory), has come to Galway to write a treatise on Samuel Beckett. When muggers start kicking in Boru's teeth, Jack comes to the rescue, and Boru's interest shifts to the brooding former member of the Garda, the Irish national police, as a subject of study. Boru becomes Jack's Boswell, involved in his effort to take down a Galway university professor who's getting away with violent crimes. About half the book consists of Jack's trademark reveries on rage and drinking, his comments on binge-watching TV crime shows, and name-dropping mystery writers. In one metafictional scene, Jack buys an unnamed Ken Bruen a drink in a bar. New readers might do better to start with the first in the series, The Guards (2001), though dedicated fans of Irish noir will spot favorite touchstones of the saga.
