Hi All,
Well, as a huge Ken Bruen fan, this thread has brought me out
of lurkdom
:o) Bill wrote:
> I've had Ken Bruen's "White Trilogy," reprinted in a
thick trade paperback
> edition by Kate's Mystery Books, on my shelf for
about a year now. Last
> night, I took it down and read "A White Arrest," the
first of the trilogy,
> and I'm sorry I waited so long. It's nasty, brutal,
and short. It has more
> riffs on popular culture than I could count, along
with plenty of dark
> humor.
And Keith wrote:
> Good morning, Bill. Took Bruen's two "guards" books
on vacation and
> found them absolutely captivating. Ordered the White
Trilogy yesterday.
> Interested to see if his heavy noir hand is in the
England-based books.
Both series are wonderful. They both have the
trademark:
Lists :o) Quotations Humour
It's clear from his work that he loves crime fiction and noir
films - and his books combine my two favourite things in
fiction - very dark and very funny. I can go from tears to
laughter on the turn of a page.
The two series consist of:
JACK TAYLOR (PI series set in Galway, Ireland)
The Guards - 2001 The Killing of The Tinkers - 2002 The
Magdalen Martyrs - 2003 The Dramatist - May (?) 2004 Priest -
2005
First paragraph of The Guards:
"It's almost impossible to be thrown out of the Garda
Siochana. You have to really put your mind to it. Unless you
become a public disgrace, they'll tolerate most
anything."
BRANT/ROBERTS/FALLS (police series set in London)
A White Arrest - 1998 Taming The Alien - 1999 The McDead -
2000
(all as The White Trilogy - 2003) Blitz - 2002
Vixen - 2003 Calibre - May 2004
First paragraph of A White Arrest:
"R&B they were called. If Chief Inspector Roberts was
like the Rhythm, then Brant was the darkest Blues. Pig
ignorant more like, was also said."
He also has some standalones:
Funeral - 1992 Shades of Grace Martyrs
(none of which are crime fiction I believe) Rilke
on Black - 1996 The Hackman Blues - 1997 Her Last Call To
Louis MacNeice - 1998 London Boulevard - 2001 Dispatching
Baudelaire - 2004
And he's working on another standalone for publication in
2005.
I really don't know why he's not better known than he is -
but I also think that 2004 will be his year. He's up for the
Edgar for best novel, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
He's a wonderful writer.
Donna
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 16 Mar 2004 EST