Works by
Ken Bruen
(Writer)

• American Skin (2006)
  Stephen Blake is a good man blown in bad directions. He and girlfriend Siobhan, best friend Tommy, IRA terrorist Stapleton, and a particularly American sort of psychopath named Dade, are all on a collision course somewhere on the road between the dive bars of New York, and the pitiless desert of the Southwest. American Skin is the long-awaited American novel by Ken Bruen, the hardboiled master of Irish Noir.

• Her Last Call To Louis MacNeice (2005)
  Cooper had done his time in prison. Now on the outside, he'd set up a legitimate business with Doc, who he'd met inside. They called themselves "Righteous Repo," and they even had an accountant. The repo firm did good business, but it wasn't anywhere near as exhilarating as the bank jobs they did on the side.

• Rilke On Black (2005)
  In south London, an unlikely gang of kidnappers-Nick, an ex-bouncer; Dex, a charismatic sociopath; and Lisa, a motormouth junkie femme fatale-hatches a plot. Their prey is a powerful local businessman with an obsession for the poet Rilke. The thing is, each kidnapper has a very different agenda, which means it's only a matter of time before the joking stops and the violence takes over.

• Dispatching Baudelaire (2004)

• London Boulevard (2002)
  A dark twist on the classic story.

• The Hackman Blues (1998)

Inspector Brant Novels

1. A White Arrest (1999)

2. Taming the Alien (2000)

3. The McDead (2001)

4. Blitz: Or Brant Hits the Blues (2004)
   The South East London police squad are down and out: Detective Sergeant Brant is in hot water for assaulting a police shrink, Chief Inspector Roberts' wife has died in a horrific car accident, and WPC Falls is still figuring out how to navigate her job as a black female investigator in the notorious unit. When a serial killer takes his show on the road, things get worse for all three. Nicknamed "The Blitz" by the rabid London media, the killer is aiming for tabloid immortality by killing cops in different beats around the city.Blitz represents Ken Bruen at his edgy, lethal, and sharp-tongued best, and will reward fans of his Jack Taylor novels with another astonishing, smart, and brutal vision from a writer rapidly becoming one of the best of his generation.

5. Vixen (2005)
   For the Southeast London police squad, it's rough, tough, dirty business as usual. The Vixen, the most sensuos, crazed female serial killer ever, is masterminding a series of lethal explosions. She is unpredictable, wild, angry--and the cops don't even know she exists.Meanwhile, Inspector Roberts is helpless to stop the explosions and his subordinates aren't doing much better. Brant is consumed with an even-bigger-than-usual mean streak, and fast-rising Porter Nash finds himself facing serious health problems--everything to do with needles. PC MacDonald is determined to soldier on, whatever the cost, and the career of a new addition to the squad, WPC Andrews, starts spectacularly but with Falls as her mentor she's not expected to last long. At the top, Superintendent Brown is close to a coronary, and arresting the wrong man in a blaze of publicity is only the beginning of his problems.If the squad survives this incendiary installment in Ken Bruen's blazingly intense series, they'll do so with barely a cop left standing.

6. Calibre (2006)
   Somewhere in the teeming heart of London is a man on a lethal mission. His cause: a long-overdue lesson on the importance of manners. When a man gives a public tongue-lashing to a misbehaving child, or a parking lot attendant is rude to a series of customers, the “Manners Killer” makes sure that the next thing either sees is the beginning of his own grisly end.
   When he starts mailing letters to the Southeast London police squad, he’ll soon find out just how bad a man’s manners can get. The Southeast is dominated by the perpetual sneer of one Inspector Brant, and while he might or might not agree with the killer’s cause and can even forgive his tactics to some degree, Brant is just ornery enough to employ his trademark brand of amoral, borderline-criminal policing to the hunt for the Manners Killer. For if there’s one thing that drives the incomparable inspector, it’s the unshakeable conviction that if anyone is going to be getting away with murder on his patch, it’ll be Brant himself, thank you very much.

7. Ammunition (2007)
   Over the many years that Inspector Brant has been bringing his own patented brand of policing to the streets of southeast London, the brilliant but tough cop has made a few enemies. So when a crazed gunman, hired by persons unknown, pumps a magazine full of bullets into Brant in a local pub, leaving him in grasping at life (but ornery as ever), his colleagues on the squad are left wondering how to react. Brant's old partner Inspector Roberts, the man who may know him best, finds himself wondering why someone didn't shoot the hateful detective years ago. The answer, as they're all about to find out, is quite simple: if you come after Brant you'd damn well better kill him the first time-because if you don't, you won't want to stick around to find out what happens next.

See also:

• The White Trilogy (2003)
  Omnibus includes A White Arrest, Taming the Alien, and The McDead

Jack Taylor Novels

1. The Guards (2003) -- Winner Edgar Award for Best Novel
   Still stinging from his unceremonious ouster from the Garda Siochana-The Guards, Ireland's police force-and staring at the world through the smoky bottom of his beer mug, Jack Taylor is stuck in Galway with nothing to look forward to. In his sober moments Jack aspires to become Ireland's best private investigator, not to mention it's first-Irish history, full of betrayal and espionage, discourages any profession so closely related to informing. But in truth Jack is teetering on the brink of his life's sharpest edges, his memories of the past cutting deep into his soul and his prospects for the future nonexistent. Nonexistent, that is, until a dazzling woman walks into the bar with a strange request and a rumor about Jack's talent for finding things. Odds are he won't be able to climb off his barstool long enough to get involved with his radiant new client, but when he surprises himself by getting hired, Jack has little idea of what he's getting into. Stark, violent, sharp, and funny, The Guards is an exceptional novel, one that leaves you stunned and breathless, flipping back to the beginning in a mad dash to find Jack Taylor and enter his world all over again. It's an unforgettable story that's gritty, absorbing, and saturated with the rough-edged rhythms of the Galway streets. Praised by authors and critics around the globe, The Guards heralds the arrival of an essential new novelist in contemporary crime fiction.

2. The Killing of the Tinkers (2004)
   When Jack Taylor blew town at the end of The Guards his alcoholism was a distant memory and sober dreams of a new life in London were shining in his eyes. In the opening pages of The Killing of the Tinkers, Jack's back in Galway a year later with a new leather jacket on his back, a pack of smokes in his pocket, a few grams of coke in his waistband, and a pint of Guinness on his mind. So much for new beginnings. Before long he's sunk into his old patterns, lifting his head from the bar only every few days, appraising his surroundings for mere minutes and then descending deep into the alcoholic, drug-induced fugue he prefers to the real world. But a big gypsy walks into the bar one day during a moment of Jack's clarity and changes all that with a simple request. Jack knows the look in this man's eyes, a look of hopelessness mixed with resolve topped off with a quietly simmering rage; he's seen it in the mirror. Recognizing a kindred soul, Jack agrees to help him, knowing but not admitting that getting involved is going to lead to more bad than good. But in Jack Taylor's world bad and good are part and parcel of the same lost cause, and besides, no one ever accused Jack of having good sense. Ken Bruen wowed critics and readers alike when he introduced Jack Taylor in The Guards; he'll blow them away with The Killing of the Tinkers, a novel of gritty brilliance that cements Bruen's place among the greats of modern crime fiction.

3. The Magdalen Martyrs (2005)
   Jack Taylor is walking the delicate edge of a sobriety he doesn't trust when his phone rings. He's in debt to a Galway tough named Bill Cassell, what the locals call a "hard man." Bill did Jack a big favor a while back; the trouble is, he never lets a favor go unreturned. Jack is amazed when Cassell simply asks him to track down a woman, now either dead or very old, who long ago helped his mother escape from the notorious Magdalen laundry, where young wayward girls were imprisoned and abused. Jack doesn't like the odds of finding the woman, but counts himself lucky that the task is at least on the right side of the law. Until he spends a few days spinning his wheels and is dragged in front of Cassell for a quick reminder of his priorities. Bill's goons do a little spinning of their own, playing a game of Russian roulette a little too close to the back of Jack's head. It's only blind luck and the mercy of a god he no longer trusts that land Jack back on the street rather than face down in a cellar with a bullet in his skull. He's got one chance to stay alive: find this woman. Unfortunately, he can't escape his own curiosity, and an unnerving hunch quickly turns into a solid fact: just who Jack's looking for, and why, aren't nearly what they seem. The Magdalen Martyrs, the third Galway-set novel by Edgar, Barry, and Macavity finalist and Shamus Award-winner Ken Bruen, is a gripping, dazzling story that takes the Jack Taylor series to explosive new heights of suspense.

4. The Dramatist (2006)
   Seems impossible, but Jack Taylor is sober---off booze, pills, powder, and nearly off cigarettes, too. The main reason he's been able to keep clean: his dealer's in jail, which leaves Jack without a source. When that dealer calls him to Dublin and asks a favor in the soiled, sordid visiting room of Mountjoy Prison, Jack wants to tell him to take a flying leap. But he doesn't, can't, because the dealer's sister is dead, and the guards have called it "death by misadventure." The dealer knows that can't be true and begs Jack to have a look, check around, see what he can find out. It's exactly what Jack does, with varying levels of success, to make a living. But he's reluctant, maybe because of who's asking or maybe because of the bad feeling growing in his gut. Never one to give in to bad feelings or common sense, Jack agrees to the favor, though he can't possibly know the shocking, deadly consequences he has set in motion. But he and everyone he holds dear will find out soon, sooner than anyone knows, in the lean and lethal fourth entry in Ken Bruen's award-winning Jack Taylor series.

5. Priest (2007)
   Ireland, awash with cash and greed, no longer turns to the Church for solace or comfort. But the decapitation of Father Joyce in a Galway confessional horrifies even the most jaded citizen. Jack Taylor, devastated by the recent trauma of personal loss, has always believed himself to be beyond salvation. But a new job offers a fresh start, and an unexpected partnership provides hope that his one desperate vision-of family-might yet be fulfilled. An eerie mix of exorcism, a predatory stalker, and unlikely attraction conspires to lure him into a murderous web of dark conspiracies. The specter of a child haunts every waking moment. Explosive, unsettling and totally original, Ken Bruen's writing captures the brooding landscape of Irish society at a time of social and economic upheaval. Here is evidence of an unmistakable literary talent.

6. Cross (2008 release)

Max Fisher and Angela Petrakos Series

1. Bust (2006) by Jason Starr and Ken Bruen
   5 important lessons you can get from reading Bust: book.

   • When you hire a hit man to kill your wife, don't pick a psychopath.

   • Drano is not the best tool for getting rid of a dead body.

   • Those locks on hotel room doors?  Not very secure.

   • A curly blond wig isn't much of a disguise.

   • SECRETS can kill.

2. Slide (2007) by Jason Starr and Ken Bruen
   Max Fisher used to run a computer company; Angela Petrakos was his assistant and mistress. But that was last year. Now Max is reinventing himself as a hip-hop crack dealer and Angela's back in Ireland, hooking up with a would-be record-setter . . . in the field of serial killing. Will their paths cross again? What do you think?
   
   From the evil geniuses who brought you BUST comes a roller-coaster ride of suspense, mayhem and vicious fun that'll make you reluctant ever to open your mail again.
   
   Don't say we didn't warn you.

Other

• A Fifth of Bruen: Early Fiction of Ken Bruen (2006)
  A Fifth of Bruen: Early Fiction of Ken Bruen is an omnibus of six novels, novellas, and story collections that were originally published in the early 1990s, years before Bruen was nominated for crime fiction's most coveted prize, the Edgar Award for Best Novel (for The Guards).
  
  Includes:

  • Funeral: Tales of Irish Morbitities

  • Martyrs

  • Shades of Grace

  • Sherry and Other Stories

  • All the Old Songs and Nothing to Lose

  • The Time of Serena-May / Upon the Third Cross

See also:

• Bloodlines: A Horse Racing Anthology (2006), Jason Starr and Maggie Estep, eds.
  From provocative peeks into the lives of jockeys, trainers, owners, and breeders, to the down and dirty doings of bookies and gamblers, here is a literary tribute to a favorite national pastime.  Includes original fiction and nonfiction from some of our most beloved writers, including

  Bill Barich, Charlie Stella, Daniel Woodrell, James Surowiecki, Jane Smiley, Jason Starr, Jerry Stahl, Joe R. Lansdale, John Schaefer, Jonathan Ames, Ken Bruen, Laura Hillenbrand, Laura Lippman, Lee Child, Maggie Estep, Meghan O’Rourke, Scott Phillips, Steven Crist, Wallace Stroby, and William Nack

• Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir (2006)
  Includes works by Colin Cotterill, Duane Swierczynski, Jason Starr, Jeff Abbott, Ken Bruen, Laura Lippman, Mark Billingham, Reed Farrel Coleman, Steve Brewer, and Victor Gischler

• Dublin Noir: The Celtic Tiger vs. the Ugly American (2006), Ken Bruen, ed.
  Brand new stories by: Charlie Stella, Craig McDonald, Duane Swierczynski, Eoin Colfer, Gary Phillips, James O. Born, Jason Starr, Jim Fusilli, John Rickards, Ken Bruen, Kevin Wignall, Laura Lippman, Olen Steinhauer, Pat Mullan, Patrick J. Lambe, Peter Spiegelman, Ray Banks, Reed Farrel Coleman, Sarah Weinman, and others.
  
  Irish crime-fiction sensation Ken Bruen and cohorts shine a light on the dark streets of Dublin. Dublin Noir features an awe-inspiring cast of writers who between them have won all major mystery and crime-fiction awards. This collection introduces secret corners of a fascinating city and surprise assaults on the "Celtic Tiger" of modern Irish prosperity.

• Brooklyn Noir (2004), Tim McLoughlin, ed.
  Includes works by Arthur Nersesian, Chris Niles, Ellen Miller, Ken Bruen, Kenji Jasper, Maggie Estep, Neal Pollack, Nelson George, Pearl Abraham, Pete Hamill, and Sidney Offit