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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... Silver Falls Library | MYS BRUEN | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic (m) Bruen, K. 2010 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
America--the land of opportunity, a place where economic prosperity beckons: but not for PI Jack Taylor, who's just been refused entry. Disappointed and bitter, he thinks that an encounter with an overly friendly stranger in an airport bar is the least of his problems. Except that this stranger seems to know much more than he should about Jack. Jack thinks no more of their meeting and resumes his old life in Galway.
But when he's called to investigate a student murder--connected to an elusive Mr. K--he remembers the man from the airport. Is the stranger really who he says he is? With the help of the Jameson, Jack struggles to make sense of it all. After several more murders and too many coincidental encounters, Jack believes he may have met his nemesis. But why has he been chosen? And could he really have taken on the devil himself?
Suspenseful, haunting, and totally unique, The Devil is Bruen at his very best.
Author Notes
Ken Bruen was born in 1951 in Galway, Ireland. He was educated at Gormanston College, Meath and later at Trinity College Dublin where he earned a PhD. in metaphysics. He spent 25 years as an English teacher in Africa, Japan, Asia and South America. Ken Bruen's works include the well reeived White Trilogy and a book entitled The Guards, which won a Shamus Award .He also edited an anthology of stories set in Dublin entitled Dublin Noir. His writing speciality is crime fiction. Some of his other works include The Killing of the Tinkers, The Magdalen Martyrs, and The Dramatist and Priest, which was nominated for the 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. Ken Bruen is also the recipient of the first David Loeb Gooodis Award in 2008 for his dedication to his art.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Bruen's atmospheric, metaphysically tinged eighth Jack Taylor novel, the Galway PI clashes with Satan himself-or so all the clues scream. Denied passage to America at the airport in Ireland, Jack decides Xanax isn't enough and hits the bar for a Jameson, where he meets the mysterious Kurt, who tells him that "evil hones in on those closest to redemption." Soon murder and suicide point to the involvement of a "Mr. K" and force Jack to revisit previous cases, including a session with a tinker fortune teller. Bruen's usual tour of Galway shows Jack finding comfort in "that vanished Ireland where people stopped in the streets, blessing themselves and said the prayer." In addition to drugs and booze, Jack starts smoking again and reflects, "The Sig was to hand. I was ready and be-jaysus, I was willing." Lots of such delicious moments for the legion of fans dot this outing for the beleaguered detective-one character even suggests Jack read Sanctuary (2009), the previous novel in the series. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Someone's killing Jack Taylor's friends, and there's the devil to pay. Literally?Galway's leading bipolar private eye (Sanctuary, 2009, etc.), whose mood swings from the merely dark to the stygian, is at his low point again. He'd like to resign and retire; that is, "put all the past horrors of my time as a half-arsed PI behind me." That's because Jack Taylor's cases have been ending unrewardingly. Oh, he cracks them brilliantly enough. It's just that there always seems to be collateral damagegood people getting hurt, people he thinks he should have been able to protect. When Teresa Jordan asks him to investigate the disappearance of her son, he knows he should fob her off, but he can't. She has those lovely eyes that tell of slings and arrows borne bravely, a look that to a man of Taylor's Irish susceptibilities is irresistible. But signing on proves exactly the mistake he feared. Enter the Luciferian Mr. K, polished to a high shine and dressed to kill. From whence has he come? What does he want with the likes of Jack? Plausible answers are unforthcoming. Suddenly, however, body bags begin filling with people Taylor cares deeply about, and he finds himself one on one with...whom? Does a bespoke Italian-made shoe conceal a cloven hoof?Between all the Xanax-popping and Jameson-swilling, Bruen keeps Jack and his adventures as mordantly funny as ever.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Former Garda detective and former Galway PI, Jack Taylor plans to immigrate to the U.S., but he runs afoul of airport security and isn't allowed to board his flight. Although his disappointment is cushioned by Xanax, he heads for the bar to get additional solace from Jameson and Guinness, while indulging in his love of personal recrimination. But the self-loathing session is interrupted by a stranger who fancies diabolical puns and seems to know things about Jack. Returning to Galway, Jack is hired to find a missing student; when the student's mutilated body is discovered, Jack recalls the unsettling stranger and begins to wonder if he is the Devil incarnate. On the way to a fateful showdown with the stranger (or Devil), Jack's signature screeds about his own failings and life in contemporary Ireland seem somewhat more modulated than in Sanctuary (2009). Aficionados of Jack's mental howls of rage and despair shouldn't themselves despair: The Devil is anything but cheerful. It will go down nicely with a large Jameson.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Jack Taylor is stuck in the airport in Ireland and approached by the handsome but off-putting Kurt in the first of a multitude of bars. After some verbal jousting, the two part ways, only to have Kurt reappear as "Carl Franz" at a party at the house of Jack's friend Ridge, back in Galway. One local hires Jack to find her missing son and another to, of all things, prevent some girls from bullying her daughter. Jack pops Xanax and drinks his Jameson with Guinness chasers and keeps meeting up with Kurt while people around him start to get hurt or die in sometimes gruesome fashion. Jack has his suspicions about Kurt's true identity but spends most of his time going from one bar to the next rather than doing any serious investigation. Verdict This is best for series fans and those who like their protagonists to be Irish and well soaked in alcohol. For others seeking a tough detective battling mystical foes, consider steering them toward Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series or John Connolly's Charlie Parker series. [Library marketing.]-Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Lib., Wisconsin Rapids (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.