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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9780312341459
ISBN number: 0312341458
Label: St. Martin's Minotaur
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 240
Printing Date: July 24, 2007
Publishing house: St. Martin's Minotaur
Release Date: July 24, 2007
Sale Popularity Level: 334159
Studio: St. Martin's Minotaur
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Over the many years that Inspector Brant has been bringing his own patented brand of policing to the streets of southeast London, the brilliant but tough cop has made a few enemies. So when a crazed gunman, hired by persons unknown, pumps a magazine full of bullets into Brant in a local pub, leaving him in grasping at life (but ornery as ever), his colleagues on the squad are left wondering how to react.
Brant's old partner Inspector Roberts, the man who may know him best, finds himself wondering why someone didn't shoot the hateful detective years ago. The answer, as they're all about to find out, is quite simple: if you come after Brant you'd damn well better kill him the very first time-because if you don't, you won't want to stick around to find out what happens next.
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Rated by buyers 
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Ireland is known for producing some of the greatest writers in Western literature. But few would consider Joyce or Yeats or Shaw to be mystery or crime writers. The prolific Galway writer, Ken Bruen, is an award-winning mystery author who has been called the "Celtic Dashiell Hammett." Bruen is changing the way Americans think about Irish writers by producing some of the best mysteries on the market today.
AMMUNITION is the seventh entry in Bruen's police procedural series set in London. It does not disappoint. Bruen continues to take the procedural format made famous by Ed McBain in his 87th Precinct series and turn it on its ear. The result is a delightful book that is impossible to put down. This is a story about cold-blooded murder, vigilante violence, illicit drug use, law breaking, backbiting and hatred in South East London. And that's just among the cops.
The novel starts with the attempted assassination of the most famous cop in the Met, the totally amoral and often brutal Sergeant Brant, who is referred to by both friends and foes alike as "an animal" or "the devil." When word spreads that he has been shot, the very first reaction by all is the same: "Is he dead?" This is followed by disappointed silence when they hear the answer. Besides cops, those arriving at the hospital to stand vigil for Brant include "a whole gaggle of them (hookers)."
Brant is that type of guy. His closest thing to a friend on the force, Porter Nash, the gay diabetic, is assigned to find the shooter. Nash realizes: "Thing was, almost every single case, with Brant's unique style of policing, gave rise to a suspect. It was fast becoming...who wouldn't want to shoot him?"
To make matters worse, Brant's assailant takes to calling harried Chief Inspector Roberts, taunting him and promising to do the job right the subsequent time. And a new sick social phenomena known as "Happy Slapping" plagues London's streets. Youngsters walk up to strangers, slap them across the face and record their stunned reaction on a cell phone. The results end up on the Internet.
Newly promoted Sergeant Falls is ordered to go down to Kennington and catch a "happy slapper." As the Metropolitan's sole grey female cop, Falls is widely hated not for her gender or race but for her past screwups as a cop. And it turns out she passed the sergeant's exam on her final shot with the help of Brant, who stole the exam for her. But Fall's past is about to catch up with her, big time.
Bruen writes of Falls: "The past was not so much another country as a minefield of horror." A big part of that horror is a "nasty, psycho" serial killer named Angie, with whom Falls once had a brief lesbian fling. Needless to say, Angie could bring her world crashing down in an instant. And now Angie is somehow out of prison and stalking Falls.
Then there is disgraced Constable McDonald, bitter, drug-addled and stuck guarding a shopping center in the freezing cold. When he randomly bloodies a defiant teen, McDonald comes to the attention of a group of elderly vigilantes looking to take back their neighborhood from street hoodlums.
As if all this were not enough chaos, there appears on the scene a Yank. He is L.M. Wallace, a "terrorism expert" sent by American officials to assist the London police in looking for bombers. In Wallace, Bruen has created a character every bit as dangerous as Brant on his worst day. Wallace is a "dark side" figure who would scare the daylights out of Dick Cheney.
And, of course, there is still the somewhat shaken Brant, who makes a miraculous and quick recovery from his wounds. Bruen writes of Brant: "Yeah, fine, he was of Irish descent, he knew the painkiller that never failed. Tore open his drinks cabinet, nigh splintering the wood, grabbed the bottle of Jameson, a twenty-five year old beauty he'd been saving, twisted off the cap as if he was twisting the neck of some bugger, got a lethal measure poured into a heavy Waterford tumbler and drank deep, waiting for the magic to light his belly." And that, along with the help of one of his hooker friends, put Brant right back in the game. As Nash observes, "A focused Brant was a very dangerous animal."
Bruen moves the various plot lines along at a brisk pace. Much like the master of the procedural, McBain, Bruen can make his characters become so involved in another plot line that they forget momentarily the danger they face in their own. And like McBain, he can make you laugh at human foibles and absurdity one moment and then bring you right back into the random terror of modern life the next. Bruen writes of one character, unjustly set up by Falls: "He'd been walking along, his mind preoccupied by minor irritations. Oh, God, what he wouldn't give to have them back...Then f---, like hell opened up and Armageddon hit him."
This is a perfect description of noir. Bruen is a master of noir, ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
Bruen is one of the best modern crime authors and this is another very strong entry in his Inspector Brant series.
Rated by buyers -
Brant is as anti- as heroes can get. He's a liar, a bully, a bigot, a boor, a vigilante -- and a great cop. You have to love him.
Rated by buyers 
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Ken Bruen's irascible antihero Inspector Brant is brutal, boorish, and blunt, a bare knuckled brawler of a cop who offends all and regularly crosses over that line separated by jailhouse bars. In the very first chapter of the prolific Ken Bruen's latest crime rant, Brant is gunned down in the local pub. Clinging to life but only marginally less abusive, Brant's colleagues of London's tough southeast precinct have a long list of potential perps - both on and off the force. But as noted on the book jacket, if your going to try and take Brant down, you'd better do it right, for there's not likely a second chance.
By ordinary crime thriller standards, "Ammunition" is pretty good stuff. But if like me you're a Bruen fan, you may find this one feeling a bit tired and listless - more of the same banter and interplay between the eclectic cast of London crime stoppers, and a Brant that, perhaps because of his rehabilitation - seems to be losing some edge. For sure, the grey humour is not missing, and Bruen's dark and cynical undertones never flow too far beneath the surface. But unlike some of his recent thrillers - "American Skin", "Priest", "The Dramatist", or "Calibre" - which will haunt the reader long after the last page turns, "Ammunition" is a fast read, easily forgotten, and not much to recommend this fine author. If you're thinking about skipping one in the series, this is probably a good one to consider, while I'll nonetheless be anxiously awaiting Bruen's subsequent installment.
Rated by buyers 
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First, I'm a big fan of this series and, really, all of Bruen's stuff. And AMMUNITION is more of what I expect from him, EXCEPT for a GIANT GAFFE that screws up the entire book. SOMEWHAT OF A SPOILER FOLLOWS:
On page 28, an important character has eyes that are 'washed out blue as if they'd been bleached.' P. 113, same person has 'sharp, dark eyes.'
You may think I'm nitpicking but in genre fiction the details are often everything. You'll see when you read the book--I polished it off in one and a half sittings and, as I said, it's generally okay--that the eye stuff is NOT a minor error.
Ammunition is not a submission by an undergrad in his/her very first creative writing workshop, it's the millionth book by a Shamus Award winner. As such, it deservers ZERO stars. Lazy writing, lazy editing (I noticed a few more typos in the book as well, but I don't really mark them).
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