By the time Jack has made it into this novel he is a scarred and limping alcoholic who is deaf in one ear and HEADSTONE will see to it that he collects yet more physical and mental wounds. In this sense Taylor is the 'portrait in the attic' for many a fictional crime-fighting Dorian Gray.

One can't help wondering just how long this punch-bag of a man can survive, suffering as he does the true consequences of being the vengeance-justice seeking PI so beloved of crime fiction. As Jack pursues his investigations we get a vivid picture of Galway after the fall of the Celtic Tiger and a good slice of Jack's mordant views on priests and the clergy. Jack needs the work and he is ready for it now. Of course there is more than adequate payment plus a bonus for a successful outcome. Their treasurer has disappeared with the funds and they would be pleased if Jack could trace him. But Jack has also been called in by a member of 'The Brethren', a reform group within the Church. Their symbol is a small replica headstone and Jack Taylor receives one. The main plot in HEADSTONE, his ninth 'Jack Taylor' novel, is set in the city of Galway and involves a twisted, amoral group deciding to eliminate the 'weak' and the 'misfits'. Ken Bruen is an Irish award-winning writer of crime fiction. The group is stepping up its game and it has others in its sights. But alone in the alleyway he is also brutally beaten. On this same day, in another part of the city, a young man with Down's syndrome responds to a pretty girl's request for help. Jack figures that perhaps he should pay the old priest a visit, though Lord knows there is no love lost between them. That's what Jack is thinking when Stewart rings him to tell him that Father Malachy is in Intensive Care, unconscious after a dreadful beating. They spent some time together, visited Paris, and now she is due to visit him in Galway. Whilst recovering from a hell-hole of a case he travelled to London and met a woman.

Next day Jack Taylor, ex-Guard, private investigator, alcoholic - is taking the sun. Three figures stand in his clouding sight and a final kick to his head sends him into a coma. With the first drag a series of blows and kicks knocks him to the ground. A headstone, the size of a Zippo.Īn elderly priest drinks up his Guinness and leaves the pub, pausing outside St Nicholas's church to light a cigarette. Out on to the marble top fell a perfect miniature sculpture. I approached the package as if it were incendiary.

Headstone by ken bruen