Yesterday Andrew Nette, on BlueSky, posted a link out about the death of the Irish Author Ken Bruen. Only 74 years old, had led a life no two ways about that, and wrote some of the most wonderful, dry, noir styled works I've had the pleasure to read. As Andrew put it in his post "I loved his inspector Brant series, a terrifically lean & nasty series of novels in which it was often difficult to tell the difference between the cops and the criminals." For a start, 74 is too young to die, and for a second, it was a reminder that there was a surge in Irish crime fiction back a few years ago, and then it sort of got subsumed in my head by the #ScandiNoir offerings that proliferated. All of which are immensely worth reading, many tackling great psychological questions about life, death, humanity and the lack of it. Right now my world needs a LOT more of that writing and analysis and a huge number less of guns, shoot-em-up's and serial killers.
Vale Ken Bruen and thank you from this reader. You made me sit up, take notice, rethink expectations of what really good, no holds barred, moral ambiguity was all about and I'm grateful for your work.
Once Were Cops
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, Shea, as he's known, has his lifelong dream come true - he becomes a member of the NYPD. But Shea's dream is about to become New York's nightmare.
Once Were Cops, Ken Bruen
Where Do I Begin?
Ken Bruen writes in his own form of poetry.
The words pull no punches.
His characters make no apologies.
They will do as they damn well please and sometimes there are simply not enough good guys to go around.
You think.
It's hard to tell who is a good guy and who isn't.
ONCE WERE COPS isn't going to be a novel for everyone.
It's hard, bad, dark, violent, unapologetic, difficult and complex.
There are no winners and there are lots of losers.
Don't read it if you want a happy ending (or a neatly tied off resolution for that matter).
Do read it if you like a walk on the dark side.
Do read it if you're looking for something outside the box.
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