The Guards by Ken Bruen

(This image is from John Hinde postcard collection.)

I found this crime fiction novel delightful. Funny in a wry way, with lots of slang (not all of which I understood), plenty of drinking, plenty of action, and an interesting assortment of characters besides Jack Taylor, the ex-Garda.

Jack's a drunk - no doubt about it. But that's not all he is. After getting the boot from the Garda, he becomes an unofficial private detective. He views himself as a "finder" rather than a detective, and he holds court in his unofficial office, Grogan's, a public house in the old style. (Decorations limited to a blotchy mirror and crossed hurling sticks.)

Jack really loved his father, a peaceful man who gave Jack his love of reading, and who's recently passed away. Jack knows he needs a change, and he's dreaming of finding a flat in Battersea, and, as he says, "waiting." In the meantime, a woman approaches him in Grogan's and asks him to investigate the death of her daughter, ruled a suicide. Jack's adrift and this new case brings with it a number of complications.

What's so great about this novel is that it's funny and lively all the way through, and very easy to read. Its tone reminds me of that of Get Shorty, the film made of the Elmore Leonard novel. This novel's chapters often open with an epigram: three of them are from Elmore Leonard, T. Jefferson Parker and George Pelecanos, and Bruen name checks John Sandford for good measure. If you're a fan of these authors, I think you'll like Ken Bruen, too.

There are quite a few twists in the plot, right up to the end. Most, not all, of this twists have to do with unanticipated deaths. Yes, by the end of the book you could joke that Galway is the murder capital of the world but I will say these deaths seem organic; these deaths seem like a natural outcome of the surrounding circumstances and characters.