The Devil - (Jack Taylor) by Ken Bruen (Paperback)

About the Book

Refused entry into America, P.I. Jack Taylor thinks an encounter with an overly friendly stranger at the airport is to blame. Jack resumes his old life in Galway, but when he's called to investigate a murder, he remembers the man from the airport. Is the stranger really who he says he is?

Book Synopsis

In the next book in Ken Bruen's legendary private investigator series, Jack Taylor faces his most challenging opponent yet in this noir masterpiece, The Devil.

America--the land of opportunity, a place where economic prosperity beckons: but not for PI Jack Taylor, who's just been refused entry. Disappointed and bitter, he thinks that an encounter with an overly friendly stranger in an airport bar is the least of his problems. Except that this stranger seems to know much more than he should about Jack. Jack thinks no more of their meeting and resumes his old life in Galway.

But when he's called to investigate a student murder--connected to an elusive Mr. K--he remembers the man from the airport. Is the stranger really who he says he is? Jack struggles to make sense of it all, and the Jameson isn't helping. After several more murders and too many coincidental encounters, Jack believes he may have met his nemesis. But why has he been chosen? And could he really have taken on the devil himself?

Suspenseful, haunting, and totally unique, The Devil is Bruen at his very best.

Review Quotes

"Ken Bruen is hard to resist, with his aching Irish heart, silvery tongue, and bleak noir sensibility. . . . [Bruen] writes with extraordinary delicacy." --Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

"Dazzling. Bruen's style is clipped, caustic, heartbreaking, and often hilarious." --The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

"Bruen is a brilliant, lyrical, deeply moving writer who can make you laugh and cry in the same paragraph and whose characters are so sharply portrayed that they almost walk off the page at you. If you like Ian Rankin, Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, and the like, Bruen is definitely a writer to reckon with." --The Denver Post

"Bruen's furious, hard-boiled prose, chopped down to its trademark essence, never fails to astonish. . . . among the finest noir stylists of his generation." --Publishers Weekly

"Bruen's tommy-gun prose, lacerating dialogue, and hard-boiled worldview combine to provide entertainment of high order in dealing with low instincts." --New York Daily News

"The next major new Irish voice we hear might well belong to Ken Bruen." --Chicago Tribune

"Bracing, eccentric, hard-boiled, unforgettable." --The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

"Spare and unforgiving, Bruen's novels are among the best." --Rocky Mountain News

"Bruen has established himself as a master of hard-boiled noir." --The Miami Herald

About the Author

Ken Bruen has been a finalist for the Edgar and Anthony Awards, and has won a Macavity Award, a Barry Award, and two Shamus Awards for the Jack Taylor series. He is also the author of the Inspector Brant series. Several of Bruen's novels have been adapted for the screen: The first six Jack Taylor novels were adapted into a television series starring Iain Glen; Blitz was adapted into a movie starring Jason Statham; and London Boulevard was adapted into a film starring Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley. Bruen lives in Galway, Ireland.