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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Darkly Irish, February 20, 2004
Readers hoping for a light mystery that is full of intricate plot devices that will challenge their own powers of deduction while being taken on a thrill-ride of adventure should be well advised this is not the book for you. THE GUARDS reads like a celebration of hardboiled fiction, the mood is dark, some might even use the term nourish and the style is spare as Bruen has stripped the prose down to the bare bones. The story focuses on Jack Taylor, an ex-Garda Siochana officer (Ireland's National Police Service) who was kicked out of the service after he punched a member of parliament in the mouth. He spends his time, when he's not sitting drunk in his local pub, working as a private detective. Or at least, he would be working as a private detective if Ireland recognised the profession. As Jack explains it, he just finds things for people, thanks to two qualities, patience and pig stubbornness, particularly the latter. One day, while sitting in Grogan's bar working on his latest drunk, Jack is approached by Ann Henderson who wants to hire him to investigate the suicide of her daughter, Sarah. Ann is convinced that her daughter wouldn't kill herself and wants Jack to find the truth. Jack, drunk at the time, agrees to take the case. Once Jack starts working the case, it becomes obvious that he has a specific sense of right and wrong as evidenced when he targets his enemies. But he offsets that with a distinctly underdeveloped sense of self-preservation, or perhaps it's just dulled by alcohol abuse, as evidenced by the forthright approach he uses to confront these same enemies. Written in the first person from Jack's point of view, it is narrated in terse, clipped sentences as though Taylor is telling us his story through tightly gritted teeth, absolutely exhausted by his ordeals. It is very reminiscent of Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder series or George Pelecanos' Nick Stefanos series. Both of these series feature characters that battle constantly with alcoholism as Jack does. Further clues to the hardboiled qualities that Bruen achieves can be found in the quotes used at the start of selected chapters, the authors of these quotes include Ed McBain, Walter Mosely, Elmore Leonard and Pelecanos. At different times you can see the influence of each of these authors making their presence felt. As a devotee of hardboiled fiction this book really appealed to me. It's dark and occasionally depressing but the character of Jack Taylor is an honest to goodness survivor greeting most setbacks with stoic good humour he becomes a strangely endearing character and I found myself cheering for him by the end. I think it is a worthy Edgar Award nominee. By the way, between blackouts, a trip to the mental asylum, attempts at sobriety, recovering from beatings and cataclysmic falls off the wagon, Jack does actually put some time into the case he was hired to investigate. Whether he solved the case is neither here nor there really, the important thing is how he survives.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Immensely entertaining, January 27, 2003
Here's a book that stands the typical procedural format on its ear. There isn't another novel like it anywhere. With exemplary skill, Bruen makes plot secondary to characterization, and splendid characters abound--primarily his hero Jack, a fatalistic ex-cop with a wonderfully self-deprecating sense of humor, along with a great and vulnerable heart--and lists, of anything and everything. Chapter headers with quotes from here, there and everywhere--from popular mystery writers to classics. On top of all that, author Bruen writes about the disease of alcoholism with great accuracy and not a single maudlin note. The Guards reads like simultaneous gunshots to the head and the heart. It is a stunning accomplishment. My highest recommendation.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You gotta' read this guy!, March 25, 2003
I'm not sure where Ken Bruen came from. The "Publisher's-Editors" notes/reviews at the top of the intro recite "The Guards" as Bruen's debut novel. This is misleading as the book reveals nine other novels Bruen has written, The Guards being the tenth. I am certain that if you read this one you'll be hooked. It's 2:30 in the morning and I couldn't put it down. That's the best compliment you can give an author. Jack Taylor is often drunk. He hangs around drinkers and flirts with the insanity that constant drunkenness and binge drinking create. All of his relationships have been gunned down in the crossfire of alcohol. His friend Sutton is a vicious man that on rare occasions of sobriety, Jack rationalizes and explains to himself. He is kind to winos as in the ancient Padraig. He says 'I drink with'em; then buy them a foolish wreath when they die.' His closest friend is Sean, a bar owner. All of this takes place in Galway, Ireland, where Jack Taylor has disgraced himself and been cashiered out of the Siochna Guards, nearly impossible to do, and lost everything along the way. A lovely woman, Ann, asks Jack to disprove the notion, public and private, that her teenage daughter committed suicide, and thereby proving that she was murdered. Jack begins to suspect that she stepped in front of harm's way from a part-time job she had at a business owned by shady characters. There's a lot of James Crumley's "The Wrong Case" in The Guards. There is one enormous difference: we generally dislike Milo Milodragovitch and we can't help rooting for Jack. Bruen's humor is infectious. Jack visits his father's grave when Ann takes him to see the marker for her daughter, Sarah, and mutters, "Da, I'm here by default. But aren't we all?" His assistant "finder," Cathy B. who is a (just past) teenage ingenue in the subculture of the Irish Rock world, is marrying another performer and asks Jack to give her away, explaining the criteria of her request, "You're the oldest man I know." Later, one of the characters asks of the recent disappearance of another character, "Did he die or did he go to England?" Twists and turns up to the last page, retribution, reality, dialogue, sadness, introspection, coming to grips with the consequences of one's acts. This may be the best mystery I read this year! Kudos to Bruen.
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