A review by liberrydude
Headstone by Ken Bruen

4.0

Dark, disturbing, different, and depressing. I'd heard much about Ken Bruen and his Irish mysteries. Very different. They make Ian Rankin's Rebus series set in Scotland look positively sunny and cheerful. Jack Taylor of Galway is a former cop, an alcoholic, and a guy you can usually rely on in a crisis. He's got a flip sense of humor and has anti-hero written all over him. He does good. He does bad. There's the usual Irish stereotypes brought up to date to contemporary Ireland plus all the friction with the churches. Lots of violence in this one but you keep turning the pages as you never know what Jack is going to do next. He shocks you with his violence in one minute and then shocks you with his compassion one minute, like calling a taxi and paying for an old lady to get to the market. Jack goes after priests, deals with Romanian thugs, and is pursued by an insane former nemesis in this fast moving yarn. Another interesting feature of Bruen's writing is his syntax. His "align left margin" style not filling up the complete line almost seems like poetry. It give it a certain rhythm and makes you focus on words quite differently than you would if they had been in a normal sentence.