Another winner from Mr. Bruen. Trenchant, witty, intense, and well crafted.. All of Mr. Bruen's books are a must-read. He is an Irish treasure. His Jack Taylor series is one of the finest crime series ever written.

Ken Bruen is an acquired taste. He has seemingly taken it upon himself to resurrect the purest form of “noir” in today’s suspense novels. His is a very different style of writing that combines serious dread with ironic humor. Having read several of his earlier “Jack Taylor” series I found this story a bit lighter than his early works. Still, I could read these books all night long (and did in this case!). Thanks to Net Galley for the chance to read “In the Galway Silence” and I have already secured the next book in the series.

The ARC of In the Galway Silence has been available to me for some time. Today I finally read the novel. I hadn't missed much. It felt to me to be a mish mash of ideas that Ken Bruen had pop into his mind and decided to write down one day while inebriated. It is not his best work. I asked for the ARC because I have liked his previous books, but this one did not impress me.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

This book was extremely disjointed, and confusing. I did not enjoy it at all.

I am sure the fact that the kindle version I had was not formatted correctly added to my lack of enjoyment.

I was given a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This was the first book I've read by Ken Bruen, but I am familiar with the character Jack Taylor from the series on Netflix. I loved this book. Jack Taylor is a different sort of character and this mystery was as intriguing and absorbing as you would hope for. The book was well written and frankly, unputdownable. The format is a bit different but easy to follow and the story loses nothing. Definitely read this one.

I received In the Galway Silence as an ARC from Netgalley and Grove Atlantic. Ken Bruen wasn’t an author I was familiar with, but the title and cover appealed to me.

When I first started to read it, I actually thought there might be a technical issue with my PDF because text layout and amount of white space was puzzling to me, lots of short staccato bursts. However, when I settled in the rhythm and cadence of Bruen’s sparse yet evocative writing, I was hooked. Jack Taylor leads the reader through the underbelly of Galway City in pursuit of, and maybe in danger from, a man known only as the Silence. It’s an harsh and unforgiving place where the main players take no quarters.

While Bruen alludes to Jack’s backstory, the narrative stands alone. However these glimpses provided of Jack’s past mean I now feel compelled to go back and start with first novel in the series. Highly recommended.

Ken Bruen is a discovery and I really can’t understand why I have found the author and Jack Taylor so late! Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Grove Atlantic, Mysterious Press and the author, Ken Bruen, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of In The Galway Silence in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion..
I am a fan of this author, so I jumped at the chance to review this book. As per usual, I was not disappointed.
I thought the storyline was well thought out and written. It was full of atmosphere and you can't help but love the main character, Jack
Definitely worth a read.

If you like mysteries that are dark, bleak and, at times, humorous, the Jack Taylor novels by Ken Bruen in general, and In the Galway Silence in particular, are just the ticket. Jack Taylor is his own worst enemy, as he attempts to solve a double-murder while managing his often chaotic personal life, with his usual Irish charm and blarney. Where Jack goes, confusion follows. Ken Bruen's prose quite often reads like poetry and the staggered style loosely imitates Jack's human condition as he goes from one problem to another. This is a quick and enjoyable read and transports the reader to Ireland, as sure as being there. Thank you to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for the e-ARC of In the Galway Silence by Ken Bruen in exchange for an honest review.

Irish Noir!

Even when things are looking up it seems like Jack Taylor's only way is down. When he rescues a suicide from drowning his life moves in a different direction, including a competitive killer who plays one-up-manship with Jack. A bleak Irish detective novel complete with whiskey and fatalism served in large doses.
Staccato presentation leads from one scenario to another, with Jack giving the reader a sotto voice, often self deprecating commentary. Take his reflection on what to wear when meeting his previous wife's new person of interest.
"Right. How do you dress to meet your ex-wife’s new man? Carefully. I put on the obligatory black jacket, white shirt, tie, loosely (to suggest mellow or couldn’t [care less]), black jeans, Docs. ... Checked in the mirror, saw a battered undertaker’s assistant, the guy you keep in the background."
Wonderful tone, and fatalistic nuances surround Jack's self reflections.
I am just as fascinated as I always have been with this anti hero. Whimsy borders on tragedy. Great!

A NetGalley ARC

EXCERPT: I turned very slightly, moved my face close to supercop, whispered, "I'm going to shoot him on Friday, at about three in the afternoon, so you can be there to make the big arrest."

He moved back a step.

"Are you serious?"

I pondered, then, "Maybe it's the drink talking."

Debated.

Added, "Could be Thursday. I'm lousy with dates."

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Ken Bruen has been called "hard to resist, with his aching Irish heart, silvery tongue, and bleak noir sensibility" (New York Times Book Review). His prose is as characteristically sharp as his outlook in the latest Jack Taylor novel, In the Galway Silence. After much tragedy and violence, Jack Taylor has at long last landed at contentment. Of course, he still knocks back too much Jameson and dabbles in uppers, but he has a new woman in his life, a freshly bought apartment, and little sign of trouble on the horizon. Once again, trouble comes to him, this time in the form of a wealthy Frenchman who wants Jack to investigate the double-murder of his twin sons. Jack is meanwhile roped into looking after his girlfriend's nine-year-old son, and is in for a shock with the appearance of a character out of his past. The plot is one big chess game and all of the pieces seem to be moving at the behest of one dangerously mysterious player: a vigilante called "Silence," because he's the last thing his victims will ever hear.

This is Ken Bruen at his most darkly humorous, his most lovably bleak, as he shows us the meaning behind a proverb of his own design--"the Irish can abide almost anything save silence."

MY THOUGHTS: Random.

Compelling.

Dark.

Funny.

This book is all these things, and more. I was concerned about joining this series at book #14. I needn't have been. After some initial confusion, I was entranced. I wondered if the author was on speed. I wondered if I should be. I had to shift my brain into random mode and just go with the flow.

A great experience.

I will be reading more from this author.

😂😲😆😨😉

THE AUTHOR: Ken Bruen, born in Galway in 1951, is the author of The Guards (2001), the highly acclaimed first Jack Taylor novel. He spent twenty-five years as an English teacher in Africa, Japan, S.E. Asia and South America. His novel Her Last Call to Louis Mac Niece (1997) is in production for Pilgrim Pictures, his "White Trilogy" has been bought by Channel 4, and The Guards is to be filmed in Ireland by De Facto Films.

He has won Two Shamus awards by Private Eye Writers of America for the best detective fiction genre novel of the year for The Guards(2004) and The Dramatist(2007).

He has also received The Best series Award in February 2007 for the Jack Taylor novels from The Crime Writers Association

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Grove Atlantic via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of In the Galway Silence by Ken Bruen for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

Published by Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press on November 13, 2018

Here’s how one of the characters in Ken Bruen’s In the Galway Silence describes Jack Taylor: “Not fully nuts but circling.” The description is apt, but the misfortunes that befall Taylor would make anyone nuts.

Two young and obnoxious men are killed by a man who superglues their mouths shut and pins a sign on their bodies that says “Silence.” Their father wants to hire Jack to bring him the killer. Jack, who seems to have entered into a steady relationship and is happy for the first time in a long time, wants no ugliness to disturb his new state of mind. Being Jack, he nevertheless commences an investigation. More “Silence” killings ensue, the apparent work of a vigilante.

As Jack investigates, he saves a man who jumped into the sea, an act of kindness that he might come to regret. A child molester, a dog killer, an annoying documentary maker, and a black swan all contribute to the plot.

In his personal life, Jack finds himself stuck with childcare duties, the downside of dating a woman who has a child. As series fans will understand, Jack is probably the least qualified person in the universe to provide childcare, with the exception of the various pedophiles the story touches upon. In Jack’s words, concerning the boy he is watching: “I’d have sold his miserable hide for one shot of Jameson.” Series readers might also remember an unfortunate mishap some books ago involving a baby and a window. There’s a reason Jack has little success in relationships.

But he misses his dog, so it is clear that a good heart beats in Jack’s chest. This novel proves Jack’s fundamental decency in multiple ways, not the least in a scene that leaves him briefly thankful for a respite from the bitterness that engulfs him.

As usual, Jack glides through the novel, taking frequent drinks, suppressing or (more often) making snarky comments to people who haven’t learned to leave him alone, and reviewing his growing list of mistakes. He also learns from an ex-wife that his past holds a surprise. But series readers know that anything good in Jack’s life will soon be destroyed and the descending darkness will again seem unbearable. There is no protagonist in fiction more tragic than Jack Taylor.

Jack provides the running commentary on current events, television shows, pop music, and crime novels for which Bruen is famed. I always find something new to read or watch in a Bruen novel, because Bruen understands that good writing isn’t the exclusive province of Booker prize winners. Bruen also incorporates a chess theme into the plot, strategies of the game informing Jack’s investigation in the same blurry way that Jack approaches life. But what Bruen does best is the punch-in-the-gut moment that makes Jack Taylor novels special. In the Galway Silence delivers a stronger punch than most, making it one of the best in the series.

RECOMMENDED

IN THE GALWAY SILENCE
Ken Bruen
Mysterious Press
ISBN
Hardcover
Thriller

I have a spiral notebook dedicated to Ken Bruen. I take notes on his novels. I don’t write down the plots (which are memorable in themselves). Rather, each of Bruen’s Jack Taylor novels (and a number of his other works as well) contain an encyclopedic range of quotations, reading suggestions, music references, and other popular culture nuggets that are each and all worth seeking out and sampling. Regardless of how well-read you may be, Bruen, whether through his epigraphs or Taylor’s own bookshelves, will lead you to something new and startling. It is quite a generous genre, but it also demonstrates how riveting and compelling Bruen’s own work is with each and every book, given that you will seek out the new (to you) books (or videos, or television series, or CDs) but only after you finish that new Taylor novel from which the list springs.

Bruen has a distinctive style, comprised of some short and some run-on sentences that dip and swirl throughout Taylor’s first-person past tense narrative. That worthy text is not a stream of consciousness technique but it occasionally comes close. Taylor will without warning veer off the story page into a tangent (an always interesting one) which might consist of a story from the past, a list of favorite books, or a reminisce of an old flame. The result is that one never knows what is going to happen next from the beginning of the book to the end. There might sometimes be a vague hint or two, but it is always soaked in a general wash of foreboding. It makes no never mind, as when the bad thing happens abruptly it’s always worse than we have imagined. This is particularly true with the newly published IN THE GALWAY SILENCE. Each Taylor novel of late (over at least the past ten years) has given me at least one of what I call a “scream,” as in “ohmighodthatAAAAAAAAAAHHHHdidn’tjusthappen!” The first surprise, of IN THE GALWAY SILENCE, though it is not a bad one, arrives within the first few pages of the book. That surprise is that Taylor has money, has a nice apartment, is in a relationship, is (reasonably) sober, and seems somewhat happy. This is unfamiliar territory for Taylor, the sodden Galway private eye whose usual state has him one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. All of this good fortune and (reasonably) clean living changes, of course, when Taylor is retained by Pierre Renaud to find and return the person responsible for murdering Renaud’s twin sons. Taylor is not really inclined to do so, given that Renaud is a notorious hedge fund manager and that whoever took is sons off of the table did Galway and the world a favor. Taylor nonetheless reluctantly immerses himself into the investigation, even as he gets wrapped up in babysitting his girlfriend’s precocious and obnoxious child and then finds himself suddenly confronted with a ghost of Christmas past bearing a gift that is most assuredly not one offered by one of the Magi. Meanwhile, a vigilante assassin popularly known as Silence begins to slowly interject himself into Taylor’s life in the worst of ways, with unfortunately predictable results. Taylor by story’s end is not on the precipice, but he’s hanging close. Nonetheless, he promises --- or at least indicates --- that he will be back.

I assure you that no one other than Bruen is writing books quite like this or, indeed, quite this side of wondrous. He writes like an angel, a fearsome one such as he describes within IN THE GALWAY SILENCE, but one which you will want to keep and have close to you to the end of your days, in order to appreciate your quiet and blessed life. It’s a stunning experience from beginning to end. Strongly recommended, for surpassing even Bruen’s usual superlative standards.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2018, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

“The Irish can abide almost anything save silence.”

A few paragraphs into a new Jack Taylor novel and you hear the musicality and fall into the familiar rhythms of Ken Bruen’s prose. It is distinctive, like listening for the first time to your favourite band’s new album, you instantly the instrumentation and look forward to new tunes. Nobody in crime fiction writes like Ken Bruen. It is not just the words he uses, it is the way
he
puts
them
on
the
page.
Ex-Garda, Jack Taylor is a violent and poetic man. He beats his problems in the most literal way possible, with a hurley. Jack cares about people, yet he is self-destructive. He appears to have a death wish, yet he consumes, and enjoys, popular culture (I have gained so much from exploring books or albums recommended by Jack Taylor, although he may have taken one too many to the head - considering “Perfect” by Ed Sheehan to be, well, perfect).
Bruen’s plots are like a fever-dream. Jack narrates the madness that surrounds him, in this case, a deranged killer and a returning out of the blue ex-wife, while commenting on craziness in the wider world - Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Brexit - which only serves to heighten the sense of unreality.
I love these books and, while jumping aboard here without reading any of the previous dozen books might not be the best recommendation, if you can find the rhythm, you will definitely enjoy the song.

It is always a pleasure to accompany the wonderful Jack Taylor on another pubcrawl around Galway, taking in the sights and sounds, and of course the Jameson , as his life, once again crumbles around him. In his latest outing, an oily property developer tries to hire Taylor to find out who killed his horrible, homophobic, spoiled brat sons, and it soon becomes apparent that there may be a vigilante aspect to the killings. Meanwhile Jack's latest budding relationship is withering fast, and to further complicate matters, his ex wife returns to town with a surprise daughter in tow.
As always the writing style is so sparse as to be almost poetic at times. and definitely reflects the rambling nature of Taylor's mind. The story feels very contemporary, lots of social and pop culture references place it squarely in the current day, and I like that the author is unafraid to point the finger at some of the appalling things that have come to light in Ireland in the last couple of years..
I can't help but wish that this story had a little more meat on its bones, it feels like there was potential for more.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own,

Book was archived before I could get to it. Too bad. I will look for it in stores. Was really looking forward to reading it.

This is the latest in the fantastic Jack Taylor series of books and I absolutely loved it. Some readers have said they struggle with the style of writing but for me (especially having watched the excellent tv series) it is just like it is Jack thinking out loud and the narrative flows beautifully. There is the main part of the story running through (the murders by an ex-army killer for hire with his own problems) with smaller sub plots alongside, and as usual ex-Garda turned private investigator Jack has his share of good luck. However in this book he also has his share of tragedy which can only add to the woes of the hard drinking already embittered character that folk love and call a hero. I for one am looking forward to many more tales of Jack Taylor.

Jack just can't stay away from trouble. An ex Garda with a penchant for alcohol and drugs, he's also the person you want if you want answers, which in this case is why twins were murdered. He's also coping with a good relationship with Mariam and a rotten one with her snotty son. This is a relatively short book that has a lot of twisty things going on that eventually will make sense. Bruen has a distinctive style some might, honestly, find annoying but once you see the rhythm to how he mixes Jack's internal dialogue with the outside world and Jack's smart mouth, it's fun to read. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. This is the latest in a long series but it's fine as a standalone.

Jack Taylor is not one of the characters I would like to know. Seriously, he is one messed up dude, drinker, drugs, and profanity seem to be his mantra. Of course dealing in the underworld he inhabits would definitely make more a bit abrasive right? This seems to be the fourteenth book in the series and I feel as if I am a bit behind understanding Jack as this is my first book about him and his escapades. However, Jack is trying to recover, to put his ducks in a row, to be a better person.

Twins have been murdered, and Jack is hired by the French twins' father to investigate. Meanwhile, Jack is enticed to watch the nine year old son of his current flame. As poor Jack has been trying to stay out of the fray, trying to get his life in order, he does not want to enter the underworld that he was formerly a part of. But, things happen and Jack is drawn back in hook line and sinker into a world where the hits just keep coming and he descends into the hell he was trying so hard to escape. Life often does run in a complete circle and Jack finds himself back at the very beginning of a life he tried so hard to escape.

I am somewhat ambivalent about how I feel about this book and the way in which Mr Bruen writes. It was a short book, but written in that kind of flow of consciousness way that had you flipping around trying to absorb the happenings. One might refer to this writing as controlled chaos. So, I am still thinking and still digesting whether this might be one of those love/hate relationships one can sometimes have with a book. Would I recommend this book? hmmm don't really know.

Thank you to Ken Bruen, Mysterious Press, and NetGalley for a copy of this book due out on November 13th.

In The Galway Silence starts with Jack Taylor in a very unlikely place. He’s happy and seems ready to settle down, and with some financial gains has a lot less to worry about than he has in the past.

Hell, he’s even drinking less.

Of course, Jack Taylor is a man destined to undermine his own success, and soon finds his world turned upside down with personal drama and professional problems. He’s hired to find out who killed the sons of a wealthy man. His girlfriend has a work trip to America, and instead of going with her he stays back and is tasked with entertaining her son. He botches the bonding attempt. He saves someone’s life, finds out things about his case that nobody really wants to know, learns his family is bigger than he thought, and his girlfriend’s son is abducted by a pedophile.

Oh, and he’s also hired to find out who’s poisoning some dogs.

All of these random things converge in unexpected ways. What won’t be a surprise to anyone who knows Jack Taylor is that the happiness he’d found was fleeing and he’s soon drinking more than he should be, booze still failing to fill the empty space in his heart.

This book felt very familiar, as though I’d read it or parts of it before. Perhaps that’s because Jack Taylor follows a similar arc in each book of the series. Readers are somehow lured back to see if this time, Jack will find some happiness, or at least peace. I suppose we all have to take his good moments when we can get them, because they are overshadowed by so much darkness.

As with all Bruen books, In The Galway Silence moves at a blistering pace, and has the usual acerbic wit and lyrical style of a Bruen novel and Bruen fans will find this novel delivers on what Bruen is best known for.

I am consistently stunned by Mr. Bruen's novels and this one certainly stuns. It also shakes the soul and breaks the heart. The prose is terse. Diamond like in its clarity and hardness. The characters are drawn in short sharp shocks-- creating unexpected sympathies until their near consistent demises. I wish I could write about this book without sounding like a gushing sycophantic fanboy. But that might be near impossible.