Jack Taylor has finally escaped his violent life in Galway for a quiet retirement in the countryside, but - of course - things won't stay quiet for long. Jack Taylor has finally traded in his violent life in Galway for a quiet retirement in the country. But on a day trip back into the city, Jack is hit by a truck and left in a coma, 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 who tended 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, and he'll need all the help he can get - and a stiff drink of Jameson - once he finds them.

The award-winning crime novelist Ken Bruen is as joyously unapologetic in his writing as he is wickedly poetic. In Green Hell, Bruen's dark angel of a protagonist, Jack Taylor, has hit rock bottom: one of his best friends is dead and the other has stopped speaking to him; he has given up on sobriety; and his firing from the Irish national police is ancient history. But Jack isn't about to embark on a self-improvement plan. Instead, he has taken up a vigilante case against a respected professor of literature at the University of Galway who has developed a savage habit his friends in high places are only too happy to ignore. Jack unexpectedly gains a new sidekick after rescuing a preppy American student from a couple of kid thugs. The student, a Rhodes scholar, decides to devote himself to slinging back shots of Jameson and writing a biography of Galway's most magnetic rogue. Between pub crawls and street fights, Jack's vengeful plot against the professor soon spirals towards chaos, putting both the student and himself in danger. Enter Emerald, an edgy young goth who could either be the answer to Jack's problems, or the last ripped stitch in his undoing. Ireland may be known as a green Eden, but in Jack Taylor's world, the national color has a lethal sheen.

Jack Taylor has finally escaped his violent life in Galway for a quiet retirement in the countryside, but - of course - things won't stay quiet for long. Jack Taylor has finally traded in his violent life in Galway for a quiet retirement in the country. But on a day trip back into the city, Jack is hit by a truck and left in a coma, 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 who tended 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, and he'll need all the help he can get - and a stiff drink of Jameson - once he finds them.

MAX AND ANGELA ARE GOING DOWN!
When last we saw Max Fisher and Angela Petrakos, Max was being arrested by the NYPD for drug trafficking and Angela was fleeing the country in the wake of a brutal murder. Now both are headed for eye-opening encounters with the law - Max in the cell blocks of Attica, Angela in a quaint little prison on the Greek island of Lesbos...

When Jack Taylor 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 Taylor 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.

Advance Praise for Ken Bruen and "The Guards
""The Guards blew me away. It's dark, funny, and moving--just for starters. With a sharp eye and a lyrical voice, Ken Bruen takes us on a powerful odyssey through the mean streets of Galway, straight into the Irish heart. Bruen's tale is a potent draft of desire and hopelessness, conviction and surrender, inadvertent heroism and unexpected grace. This is mystery writing of a high order."--T. Jefferson Parker, author of "Black Water and "Silent Joe
""The Guards is a wonderful book, wrenching and real, fast, funny and wise in every sense. Why the hell haven't I heard of Ken Bruen before? He's a terrific writer and The Guards is one of the most mesmerizing works of crime fiction I've ever read. I'm going to read the rest of his work now, so don't bother me for a while. And when he's got a new one, send it to me quick. This guy is the real thing."--James W. Hall, author of "Blackwater Sound
""The Guards is raw, hard, bitter, and amazing. It's got that ancient feel to it, as of a primal story being retold with a fine, careless Irish swagger. It's as if Bruen made up his mind to tell us this story whether we wanted to hear it or not. Oh, we do. For sure."--Jon A. Jackson, author of "Badger Games
""The Guards is an astounding novel, a poetic account of a desperation as deep and cold as the North Sea, retribution, and resurrection. It's so good I can't think of it as a crime novel. It's a fine book with some crimes."--James Crumley, author of" The Final Country
""The Guards is a pint and a half of perfect book. Make it this year's specialty of the house."--Boston Teran, author of "The Prince of Deadly Weapons
""The Guardskicked my ass--it's up there with the best. If Elmore Leonard got together with James Joyce to write a Spencer novel, this is what you'd get!"--David Means, author of "Assorted Fire Events

Two modern noir mysteries by a writer whose promise was cut short. Dogtown: Whitney Logan, attorney-at-law, is broke. So when Monica Fullbright shows up with a $1,000 retainer to locate her missing housemaid, an illegal immigrant named Carmen, Whitney takes the job. She doesn't like playing sleuth, but she can't afford to be picky. Enlisting the aid of Lupe Ramos, a chicana prostitute, she stumbles on the housemaid's dead body. The unlikely pair find themselves on a fetid trail of Latin politics, drug smuggling and misguided allegiances. Soultown: Whitney Logan and Lupe have gone in different directions, both with dreams of a new start. But Whitney figures she owes Lupe something, and agrees to help her reunite her with her son, now living with Lupe's ex-boxer brother Hector and his new girlfriend in Koreatown. When they show up to get the boy, they find themselves in the midst of an armed robbery, a complicated theft involving old Korean friends who all have closely held secrets, where deception is the order of the day.

Now a major motion picture starring Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley, written and directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan of "The Departed."

When Mitchell is released from prison after serving three years for a vicious attack he doesn't even remember, Billy Norton is there to pick him up. But Norton works for Tommy Logan, a ruthless loan shark lowlife with plans Mitchell wants nothing to do with. Attempting to stay out of Logan's way, he finds work at the Holland Park mansion of faded movie actress Lillian Palmer, where he has to deal with her mysterious butler, Jordan. It isn't long before Mitchell's violent past catches up with him and people start getting hurt. When his disturbed sister Briony is threatened, Mitchell is forced to act.

"London Boulevard" is a masterful work of double-dealing and suspense from Ken Bruen, one of the great crime writers of our time.

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.

Requiems for the Departed Irish Crime, Irish Myths. It has been said before, that every story has already been told. Maybe so. But if you've got the gift of the gab, you can tell the same tale as often as you like and still give it a life of its own every time. Requiems for the Departed flaunts that gift seventeen times over. The children of Conchobar are back to their old mischievous ways; ancient Celtic royalty and druids and banshees are set loose in the new Irish underbelly. Requiems for the Departed contains seventeen short stories, inspired by Irish mythology, from some of the finest contemporary writers in the business.

Michael O'Shea is a member of Ireland's police force, known as The Guards. He's also a sociopath who walks a knife edge between sanity and all-out mayhem. When an exchange program is initiated and twenty Guards come to America and twenty cops from the States go to Ireland, Shay, as he's known, has his lifelong dream come true--he becomes a member of the NYPD. But Shay's dream is about to become New York's nightmare.

Paired with an unstable cop nicknamed Kebar for his liberal use of a short, lethal metal stick called a K-bar, the two unlikely partners become a devastatingly effective force in the war against crime.

But Kebar harbors a dangerous secret: he's sold out to the mob to help his sister. Her rape and beating leaves her in a coma and pushes an already unstable Kebar over the edge just as Shea's dark secrets threaten boil over and into the streets of New York.

"Once Were Cops" melds the street poetry of Brooklyn and Dublin into a fast-paced, incomparable hard-boiled novel. This is Ken Bruen at his best.

Jack Taylor brings death and pain to everyone he loves. His only hope of redemption - his surrogate son, Cody - is lying in a hospital in a coma. At least he still has Ridge, his old friend from the Guards, though theirs is an unorthodox relationship. When she tells him that a boy has been crucified in Galway city, he agrees to help her search for the killer. Jack's investigations take him to many of his old haunts where he encounters ghosts, dead and living. Everyone wants something from him, but Jack is not sure he has anything left to give. Maybe he should sell up, pocket his Euros and get the hell out of Galway like everyone else seems to be doing. Then the sister of the murdered boy is burned to death, and Jack decides he must hunt down the killer, if only to administer his own brand of rough justice. Ken Bruen's "Cross "is suspenseful and deeply moving mystery.

Ireland, awash with cash and greed, no longer turns to the church for solace or comfort. But the decapitation of Father Joyce in a Galway confessional horrifies even the most jaded citizen.Jack Taylor, devastated by the recent trauma of personal loss, has always believed himself to be beyond salvation. But a new job offers a fresh start, and an unexpected partnership provides hope that his one desperate vision--of family--might yet be fulfilled.An eerie mix of exorcism, a predatory stalker, and unlikely attraction conspires to lure him into a murderous web of dark conspiracies. The specter of a child haunts every waking moment.Explosive, unsettling, and totally original, Ken Bruen's writing captures the brooding landscape of Irish society at a time of social and economic upheaval. Here is evidence of an unmistakable literary talent.

Over the many years that Inspector Brant has been bringing his own patented brand of policing to the streets of southeast London, the brilliant but tough cop has made a few enemies. So when a crazed gunman, hired by persons unknown, pumps a magazine full of bullets into Brant in a local pub, leaving him in grasping at life (but ornery as ever), his colleagues on the squad are left wondering how to react.
Brant's old partner Inspector Roberts, the man who may know him best, finds himself wondering why someone didn't shoot the hateful detective years ago. The answer, as they're all about to find out, is quite simple: if you come after Brant you'd damn well better kill him the first time-because if you don't, you won't want to stick around to find out what happens next.

Seems impossible, but Jack Taylor is sober---off booze, pills, powder, and nearly off cigarettes, too. The main reason he's been able to keep clean: his dealer's in jail, which leaves Jack without a source. When that dealer calls him to Dublin and asks a favor in the soiled, sordid visiting room of Mountjoy Prison, Jack wants to tell him to take a flying leap. But he doesn't, can't, because the dealer's sister is dead, and the guards have called it "death by misadventure." The dealer knows that can't be true and begs Jack to have a look, check around, see what he can find out. It's exactly what Jack does, with varying levels of success, to make a living. But he's reluctant, maybe because of who's asking or maybe because of the bad feeling growing in his gut. Never one to give in to bad feelings or common sense, Jack agrees to the favor, though he can't possibly know the shocking, deadly consequences he has set in motion. But he and everyone he holds dear will find out soon, sooner than anyone knows, in the lean and lethal fourth entry in Ken Bruen's award-winning Jack Taylor series.

For the Southeast London police squad, it's rough, tough, dirty business as usual. The Vixen, the most sensuos, crazed female serial killer ever, is masterminding a series of lethal explosions. She is unpredictable, wild, angry--and the cops don't even know she exists.
Meanwhile, Inspector Roberts is helpless to stop the explosions and his subordinates aren't doing much better. Brant is consumed with an even-bigger-than-usual mean streak, and fast-rising Porter Nash finds himself facing serious health problems--everything to do with needles. PC MacDonald is determined to soldier on, whatever the cost, and the career of a new addition to the squad, WPC Andrews, starts spectacularly but with Falls as her mentor she's not expected to last long. At the top, Superintendent Brown is close to a coronary, and arresting the wrong man in a blaze of publicity is only the beginning of his problems.
If the squad survives this incendiary installment in Ken Bruen's blazingly intense series, they'll do so with barely a cop left standing.

When a letter containing a list of victims arrives in the post, PI Jack Taylor is sickened, but tells himself the list has nothing to do with him. He has enough to do just staying sane. His close friend Ridge is recovering from surgery and alcohol's siren song is calling to him ever more insistently.
A guard and then a judge die in mysterious circumstances.
But it is not until a child is added to the list that Taylor determines to find the identity of the killer, and put a stop to the killings at any cost.
What he doesn't know is that his relationship with the killer is far closer than he thinks, and that it's about to become deeply personal.
Spiked with dark humour, seasoned with acute insights into the perils of urbanization, and fuelled by rage at man's inhumanity to man, this is crime-writing at its darkest and most original.

"From the Trade Paperback edition."

From authors including National Book Award winner Pete Hautman, Deadly Ink 2007 winner Darrell James, and renowned social commentator turned short-story writer Mike Davis, Politics Noir is a chilling and subversive collection of new crime stories featuring greed, corruption, insatiable ambition-and murder in the very highest places.

Ken Bruen is joined by a cast of award-winning authors in a new view of the noir side of Dublin. Contributors include Eoin Colfer, Jason Starr, Laura Lippman, Olen Steinhauer, Peter Spiegelman, Kevin Wignall, Jim Fusilli and more.

Two tough, aging cops take on London's thugs, killers, and mobsters in Ken Bruen's hard-as-nails White Trilogy At sixty-two, Chief Inspector Roberts is nearly too old to be a cop, but he makes up for his age with a ferocity that the younger detectives cannot match. After four decades on the force, he has a daughter who hates him, a wife who cheats, and a bank account that grows emptier every year. But on London's darker streets, Roberts is a force to be reckoned with. With his partner, the gleefully brutal Detective Sergeant Brant, Roberts looks for every policeman's dream: the White Arrest, a high-profile success that makes up for all their past failures. In A White Arrest, their target is a bat-wielding lunatic who knocks off drug dealers. In Taming the Alien, they hunt a mysterious hit man who earned his nickname by carrying out a hit while watching Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic. And in The McDead, Roberts and Brant set their sights on a cunning kingpin ruling London's southeast side. Gripping and gritty, Ken Bruen's White Trilogy is an unforgettable noir portrait of London's seedy underworld. "Hip, violent and funny." -Publishers Weekly "This stuff smokes like cordite." -Booklist "The most striking and original crime novels of the decade." -British GQ Ken Bruen (b. 1951) is one of the most prominent Irish crime writers of the last two decades. Born in Galway, he began writing in the mid 1990s. He has two long-running series: one starring a disgraced former policeman named Jack Taylor, the other a London police detective named Inspector Brant. Praised for their sharp insight into the darker side of today's prosperous Ireland, Bruen's novels are marked by grim atmosphere and clipped prose. Among the best known are his White Trilogy (1998-2000) and The Guards (2001), the Shamus award-winning first novel in the Jack Taylor series. Along with his wife and daughter, Bruen lives and works in Galway.