Cross

A boy has been crucified in Galway city. People are shocked; the broadsheets debate how the brutal death reflects the state of the nation; the Irish Church is scandalized. No further action is taken.Then the sister of the murdered boy is burned alive and PI Jack Taylor decides to take matters into his own hands.Taylor's investigations take him to old city haunts where he encounters ghosts - living and dead. But what he eventually finds surpasses even his darkest imaginings

Where Bruen really scores is in his intimate explorations of Taylor's character, Galway City and of modern Ireland. Using language like a weapon, his humour stops the reader drowning in rain, Jameson's and self-pity. Less a whodunit that a what-to-do-about-it, this is a compelling portrait of a haunted man., Bruen's writing is as bleak and spare as Taylor's take on modern Ireland, but you'll end up hooked on this series of home-grown, gritty crime stories as Jack Taylor is on Ireland., I cannot recommend this series highly enough - if you like stark reality, if you can handle one man making his own decisions about his life ... then do yourself a favour and read Cross., Vintage Ken Bruen. Clipped prose and mordant humour are coupled to a plot that's just about as violent as anything he has ever written. Bruen has the uncanny ability to describe the most touching of moments with heart-rending effectiveness and lyrical beauty., Ken Bruen is one of Ireland's leading crime writers...this is snappy, knowing writing.

Ken Bruen was born in Galway. Having spent 25 years as an English teacher in Africa, Japan, South East Asia and South America, he now lives in Galway city with his wife and daughter. Priest, the fifth novel in the Jack Taylor series, is available in Corgi paperback.