A Galway epiphany

Format:

Book

Title:

A Galway epiphany

Author:

Bruen, Ken author

ISBN:

9780802157034

Edition:

First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition, First edition.

Publication:

New York, NY : The Mysterious Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, 2020.

Physical Description:

385 pages ; 22 cm.

Series title(s):

Jack Taylor novels.

Summary:

"Jack Taylor has finally escaped his violent life in Galway for a quiet retirement in the country. But on a day trip back into the city to sort out his affairs, Jack is hit by a truck in front of Galway's Famine Memorial, left in a coma but mysteriously without a scratch on him. When he awakens weeks later, he finds Ireland in a frenzy over the so-called "Miracle of Galway." People have become convinced that the two children seen tending to him are saintly, and the site of the accident sacred. The Catholic Church isn't so sure, and Jack is commissioned to help find the children to verify the miracle or expose the stunt. But Jack isn't the only one looking for these children. A fraudulent order of nuns needs them to legitimatize its sanctity and becomes involved with a dangerous arsonist. Soon, the building in which the children are living burns down. Can they escape?"-- Provided by publisher.

Personal Subject:

Taylor, Jack (Fictitious character)-Fiction.

Taylor, Jack (Fictitious character)

Corporate Subject:

Catholic Church -- Ireland -- Galway -- Fiction.

Catholic Church

Subject(s):

Catholic Church -- Ireland -- Galway -- Fiction.

Private investigators -- Ireland -- Galway -- Fiction.

Miracles -- Fiction.

Missing persons -- Fiction.

Nuns -- Fiction.

Arson -- Fiction.

Galway (Ireland) -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Galway (Ireland) -- Fiction.

Ireland -- Galway

Genre:

Detective and mystery fiction.

Thrillers (Fiction)

novels.

Detective and mystery fiction

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Silver Falls Library	MYS BRUEN	Searching... Unknown
Searching... McMinnville Public Library	Bruen, K.	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Salem Main Library	MYSTERY Bruen, K.	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

In the newest novel in Bruen's thrilling series, ex-cop turned private eye Jack Taylor is pulled out of his quiet new life on a farm by three mysteries that soon prove dangerously linked

Jack Taylor has finally escaped the despair of his violent life in Galway in favor of a quiet retirement in the country with his friend Keefer, a former Rolling Stones roadie, and a falcon named Maeve. But on a day trip back into the city to sort out his affairs, Jack is hit by a truck in front of Galway's Famine Memorial, left in a coma but mysteriously without a scratch on him.

When he awakens weeks later, he finds Ireland in a frenzy over the so-called "Miracle of Galway." People have become convinced that the two children spotted tending to him are saintly, and the site of the accident sacred. The Catholic Church isn't so sure, and Jack is commissioned to help find the children to verify the miracle or expose the stunt.

But Jack isn't the only one looking for these children. A fraudulent order of nuns needs them to legitimatize its sanctity and becomes involved with a dangerous arsonist. Soon, the building in which the children are living burns down. Jack returns to his old tricks, and his old demons, as his quest becomes personal.

Sharp and sardonic as ever, "the Godfather of the modern Irish crime novel" ( Irish Independent ) is at his brutal and ceaselessly suspenseful best in A Galway Epiphany .

Author Notes

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 (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

At the start of Edgar finalist Bruen's overly busy 16th Jack Taylor novel (after 2019's Galway Girl), the former Garda and Galway PI is struck by a truck and ends up comatose in a hospital. Upon awakening weeks later, he finds Galway obsessed with miracles after the Virgin Mary seems to have appeared to a pair of refugee children on the city's waterfront. (That Jack comes out of his coma with no mental confusion or lasting physical damage is deemed another miracle.) When the "miracle children" disappear, the resulting public clamor leads a skeptical representative of the Vatican investigating the miracle to commission Jack to find the children. Meanwhile, a number of other cases--a California con artist, a cyberbully, a homicidal serial arsonist, and more--demand his attention. Throughout it all, Jack, disillusioned and angry at the world, struggles to pull himself together after his daughter's murder in Galway Girl, but the violent conclusion leaves him in a darker place than ever. The sheer number of individual plot threads means that none are fully developed, and their resolutions come too easily. The result is a readable but not particularly memorable entry in an otherwise strong series. Agent: Lukas Ortiz, Philip G. Spitzer Literary. (Nov.)

Kirkus Review

Galway private eye Jack Taylor finds himself awash in miracles, and not the good kind. The whole city is abuzz with the news of "the miracle"--the spotting of a young girl bathed in an unearthly blue light that evokes Lourdes and Fatima. Jack is the beneficiary of a miracle of his own, a close encounter with a Mack truck that spared him but brought him into close contact with the miracle girl, Sara, who was trying to rob him as he regained consciousness. Jack emerges from the hospital to a raft of cases. Renee Garvey begs him to stop the husband who beats her and has now started beating their daughter. Stephen Morgan wants him to identify the online troll who drove his daughter to suicide. And Monsignor Rael, an investigator called in from Rome, wants him to find and quiet Sara because "the Church does not wish a miracle at this time." Jack, more interested in a rash of fires set by wealthy forensic accountant Benjamin J. Cullen, asks his farmer/biker/falconer friend Keefer McDonald to help him whittle down the caseload. In shockingly fast succession, the docket is indeed diminished--not by the efforts of Jack and Keefer but by jolts of violence that claim a remarkable number of the very characters who seem to be driving the story. Eventually Jack, emerging from a lost weekend that extends to five or six days (naturally, he can't remember), grabs the reins and takes control. Or does he? Another heady Irish stew spiked with wayward epigrams, one-word paragraphs, and lots and lots of Jamesons. Sláinte. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

The sixteenth installment of Jack Taylor's ode to Galway is another bleakly poetic, sharply insightful thriller. Taylor's rage has morphed into a dangerous sort of Zen--the optimal state, really, for such a beacon to dark souls. A miracle has blessed Galway, a mysterious blue light having been photographed hovering above a pair of refugee children honoring the Irish Famine Memorial. Despite the searches of miracle-hungry pilgrims, the children disappear until they are spotted huddling over Taylor moments after he's been hit by a Mack truck. Weeks later, Taylor awakens from a coma and learns that he's another of the pair's miracles: his accident didn't leave a scratch. Bruen wields the irony of Taylor's disgust for the church here, tossing him deep into church secrets, sought by the church's covert-ops czar to find the children and halt Galway's run of miracles. But, after the younger child and the person who takes care of them become the presumed victims of a predatory arsonist, the girl at the center of the miracles seeks Jack's protection. Too late, he discovers she's the darkest soul of them all.

Library Journal Review

He's left raucous Galway behind for a quiet life in the countryside, but Jack Taylor still finds trouble when he is hit by a truck and ends up in a coma. Two children who apparently helped him are regarded as saints, but finding them is another thing, and freshly awakened Jack is up against an order of nasty nuns seeking the children for their own ends. From the multi-award-winning, two-time Edgar finalist Bruen.