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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780312339289
ISBN number: 0312339283
Label: St. Martin's Minotaur
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 256
Printing Date: March 01, 2005
Publishing house: St. Martin's Minotaur
Release Date: February 10, 2005
Sale Popularity Level: 243981
Studio: St. Martin's Minotaur
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When Jack Taylour 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 in the 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 Taylour 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.
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Rated by buyers 
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After an aborted stay in London, Jack Taylour returns to Galway, still an alcoholic, but now also supporting a drug habit. That doesn't stop him from getting involved in attempting to solve a series of murders of tinkers (gypsies) in the area. As part of his fee, Jack gets to stay in decent housing, and his money purchases newer clothing, although he keeps getting them ripped and bloody, and is forced to continuously buy more. The dialogue is, as usual, the plot driver, and it's as good as in the very first book. There are a lot of references to singers who are, I assume, Irish or British, or are at least unknown to me, but it doesn't matter. There is a sadness to this book, and Jack has to admit near the end that he has made a ghastly mistake, and try to correct it by dealing with a very shady local gangster. This leads, I understand, into the plot of the third book in the series, which I can't wait to read!
Rated by buyers -
This is the second book in Ken Bruen's series about ex -Garda (Irish policeman)Jack Taylor,who earns a living now as a sort of private eye ,although this is not a profession recognised by Irish law.when the book opens he is returning to his nataive Galway ,after a stint in London.In the interim he has married a German mature student ,Kiki .although she has been left behind in London. What he has returned to Galway with however are his major league alcohol and cocaine habits ,recurrent evils in his life.He quickly hooks up with old friends Jeff )a tavern owner )and Jeff's partner ,Cathy.
Before too long he finds work as an enquiry agent ,being recruited by Sweeper,the head of the local itenerant community ,the tinkers.to investigate the brutal murders of several young men from that community ,murders being given a low priority by the Garda.The victims are all male ,in the early 20's and their naked and mutilated bodies have been dumped on waste ground near the Simon Community, an alcohol treatment centre .He is warned against pursuing his enquiries by the local Garda commander ,his old partner Clancy, and is also savagely beaten up by anti-tinker thugs.(Please note that the violence in this book -and others in the series-is graphic and realistic,Jack's injuries being extensive and described in detail .The book is not for those readers who object to violence and profanity -the books are loaded with them )He is aided in his search by a friend from London ,the old style tough copper Keegan -a dinosaur in methods and attitudes but an effective policeman and stalwart friend
Suspicion falls on a worker in the Simon Community-a supercilious young Englisman ,Ronald Bryson ,a man who seems a few bricks short of a load.He taunts Jack and threatens him through his girlfriend ,Laura ,to an extent that Jack is forced to resort to vigilante acation against him.There is however a twist in the tale -a cruel and bitter one ,that sickens Jack to his very soul.
This is a very bleak book .Violence haunts its pages and even seemingly dapper and poetic souls like Sweeper have apenchant for violent revenge.It is also a very literary book -Jack seeks solace in books and the novel is studded with references to and quotations from ,the author's favourite writers ,such as Pelecanos ,McBain, ,Chester Himes and the mystic Thomas Merton.Music is also important to Taylour and there are frequent refernces to his musical heroes (and villains).As before Galwat itself is a potent force in the experience of the book and it is acity which both delights and angers Jack .The thriving local economy has meant yuppieficationn and the loss of any sense of community as migrants flock into the city and crowd the impoverished locals to the margins of society,
It is marketed as a crime novel and surely there is some merit in this -it is about murder and the ramifications that come in its wake .However detection is not at the core of the book which is more about Taylor's own personal odyssey .It is a study in a dislocated society and of a man enduring rage ,loneliness and displacement
Read only if you can tolerate pessimism and if you insist on neat ,tidy resolutions to problems you should avoid the book .It is not your bag.For those who love noir fiction however this is manna of the very first magnitude
Rated by buyers 
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Ken Bruen's novels about Jack Taylour are at very first radically different. The language and the sentences seem taken straight out of an alcoholic nightmare. However, the sentences are eventually drowned in drunkenness, alcoholism, cocaine, beatings, killing your friends, killing the wrong person, and on and on, over and over. After a while you ask, "Is this all there is?" Making a novel out of alcoholism with such brilliant language can be arresting; making a series out of alcoholism gets tiresome all too quickly.
Still, the writing kept me reading long after I should have put the books down.
Rated by buyers -
There is magic in Ken Bruen that is not easily placed. It's certainly not the plot - there is little mystery and less forensics in Bruen's Irish crime staccato. And one can hardly be drawn to the characters, unless in the mildly perverse sense of attraction to tragic heroes plotting self destruction. Nor is Bruen good for your spirits, as he drags the reader through vast fields of human wreckage that begin with mere despair and reach utter wretchedness by the climax. Yet just as Bruen's drug and alcohol addled Jack Taylour is drawn to his booze and coke, I find myself addicted to this sparse and brutal poetry disguised as fiction, not merely unique but untouchable.
"The Killing of the Tinkers" is the second Jack Taylour novel. A classically simple Bruen story line: someone is killing "tinkers" (gypsies), the cops could care less, ex-Guard Taylour is offered a lucrative fee by one of the clan to find out who. But as with most of Bruen's writing, this central plot - finding the killer - is mostly forgotten as the insolent Taylour drifts in and out of all varieties of drug induced stupors and subsequent vomit and hangovers - not a lot of social redeeming value here, and far from the cardboard cutout PIs more often found in crime fiction. Taylour stays sober enough to wreck his short marriage and start a torrid new affair. While some of the tangents and side stories may seem like diversion in a patently sparse Bruen novel, this is indeed key to the Bruen's allure of spinning the complex psychological and cultural backdrop to the story. As always, the well-read author peppers his prose with a wide range of literary quotes and references - how can you argue with a guy comfortable with Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan - adding a dimension that complements the story while contradicting Taylor's surface brutishness. The birth of Taylor's friends child builds from the poignant in "Tinkers" to the heart wrenching in subsequent Taylour novels ("The Dramatist", "Priest"). From confrontation to beatings to decapitated swans and irate mothers, Taylour and Bruen careen to a finish that if not Hitchcockian is certainly surprising, highlighting some clever foreshadowing not typically associated with this author.
In short, modern noir as bleak as it can get, an addiction too intelligent to be called guilty pleasure. If you're not a Ken Bruen fan yet, pick up "The Guards" very first and start your own habit.
Rated by buyers -
I don't hail from Middle Earth, as one of the previous reviewers, nor do I even care to vacation there, but I am a fan of both noir and quality writing. Ergo, I think this is one terrific book. The great thing about noir (well, all novels really) is that plots do not necessarily need to be complex to be gripping. It is the characters, especially the protagonist, who need to be complex. And, oh, my, is Jack Taylour one complex, messed-up, messed-about dude. Oddly, his drug use did not put me off, as such action often does with fictional characters (and is only one reason why I detest O'Brian's Stephen Maturin character). Rather, it really brought home to me what a sad mess Jack is, what crutches he is willing to limp around on rather than seek and practice medical/psychological help, and how he is a willing assistant to the creation and maintenance of the darkness in which he dwells...and pulls others down alongside him.
I had not read any of the Jack Taylour books prior to this one (and I'll be prompt about remedying that!) but I have read the Brant books by Ken Bruen, and I was delighted to see Brant make a lengthy appearance here, albeit under the name of Keegan. I hope Jack returns to London, I'd love to see him operating on Brant's turf. Jack has more conscience than Brant/Keegan, which may make him more likeable, but also leaves him more vulnerable. Bruen gives us a nicely dark, twisty ending, and left me wondering whether maybe Jack had less conscience than I thought.
One last note, on the lit and music cited or referenced in the book: If you don't like these, and don't understand why they permeate the book, then you have my pity. They don't require explanation, but rather exploration. And if you explore, then I don't pity you, I understand you.
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