“It’s almost impossible to be thrown out of the Garda Siochana.” Begins Ken Bruen’s novel The Guards, but Jack Taylor, the doom-bent hero of his Galway saga, achieves the near impossible and is unceremoniously tossed off the police force, in the opening chapter, after ten years of “Cautions, Warnings, Last Chances, Reprieves.”
He drifts in an alcoholic fog taking on odd jobs ‘finding things,’ which “requires only patience and pig stubbornness.” The latter being Jack’s specialty. People desperate enough to hire him usually find him in the bar.
Throughout the series Jack has found and squandered redemption numerous times, given up drinking and drugs, and given in to drinking and drugs. He’s had the tar beaten out of him and delivered more than a couple of blindsided shellackings. His experience of loss, heartache, and tragedy exceeds the legal limit and his capacity for standing up only to be knocked down again is unmatched. He is Bruen’s personal psychic punching bag, I’d venture, the man he wishes to be and simultaneously fears that he is; a combustible, contradictory jumble of grace and depravity. And I hope he has now been featured in his last book.
Throughout the now eight-titles-long series, Jack’s spiritual fortitude has been tried by the crucibles of dependence, persecution, illness, betrayal, and even the church, but the direct affliction he experiences in and from The Devil is a first. When Jack is denied entry to the United States, his dream of immigrating crushed, he returns home unwanted and unprepared for what comes next. A mysterious element begins turning up everywhere in Jack’s life: his work, his last friends, and even his enemies are being haunted by evil coicidence which no one feels comfortable naming.
Has Satan, himself, come to Galway for the pleasure of finally destroying Jack Taylor? Is it a betrayal of or the unavoidable consummation of the themes of the previous seven books? Has Ken Bruen crossed the final line? Passed the point of no return? Is it now time for the Jack Taylor books to end?
The answers are: yes.
A couple weeks back, I addressed my love for James Lee Burke’s writing and my sincere desire to be done with his chief protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, and now I find myself again begging a favorite writer and influence to be finished with a hallmark character. For the same reasons as I stated for Robicheaux, (essentially, how can so much happen to one man?), plus the sudden introduction of a supernatural element, (which would irreversibly change the course of future books), I am hoping that Jack Taylor’s run is finally over. And, holy cow, is there anyone more deserving of a little rest than Jack?
I hugely admire Ken’s work. His sparse, clipped style is compulsively readable, his characters are memorable and his stories pull no punches and take no prisoners. The stakes are always high when you pick up a Bruen book because they feature real and immediate consequences. I was shocked, (but delighted and excited), when a second Jack Taylor book, (The Killing of the Tinkers) came out. After reading The Guards I had zero expectations for Jack to be a series character. The Guards didn’t hold back a thing. Taylor had been sent through such an ordeal with tremendous physical, mental, and spiritual cost, that I guessed I’d extracted everything this character had to offer. Truthfully, I’ve felt the same after every title. I don’t think there’s anything left for Jack to do or prove and I hate the thought of sending such a beloved character out for diminishing returns.
Brant, Bruen’s other series character, (excluding Max and Angela who he writes with Jason Starr), is someone I’ve never had the investment in that I do with Taylor. So, I don’t mind a million Brandt books—they’re fun, (and, like all of Bruen’s titles, only take a couple of hours to read). And thankfully, Ken still turns out standalones. In fact, after The Guards, American Skin is probably my favorite of his work, (the irony is that the character Stephen Blake from Skin seemed a natural choice to have his own series at the end of that one). At the end of the day, if Bruen writes it, I’m gonna read it, but if Jack Taylor is going to keep his special place in my heart, this is going to have to be the end.
Any other Jack Taylor fans out there? What do you think?
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
