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Cross: A Novel (Jack Taylor Series) | 
| Author: Ken Bruen
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy Used: $5.64
You Save: $18.31 (76%)
Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 159158
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 0312341423
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780312341428
ASIN: 0312341423
Publication Date: March 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Visible shelf wear -- may have some notes/markings on pages
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, March 2008: In Cross, the sixth book in Ken Bruen's brutal and brilliant Jack Taylor series, the Galway private investigator (think a more tortured and tragic--and Irish--Jack Reacher) is on the hunt for a psychopath, while his surrogate son/mentee, victim of a shooting meant to kill Jack, lies near death in a hospital. Fair warning: even for Bruen fans, this is seriously dark stuff (the killer crucifies one victim and burns another alive), brimming with violence, guilt, and a brooding morality akin to the best of Dennis Lehane. We have been in love with Bruen's sharp, spare prose since first stumbling across The Killing of the Tinkers, and we're certain that his dark, reluctant hero will draw many a hard-boiled fan from the likes of Jim Thompson and James Ellroy, as well new favorites Charlie Huston and Duane Swierczynski. --Daphne Durham
Questions for Ken Bruen Amazon.com: Now that youve been writing about him for six books, how do you approach a new Jack Taylor novel. Do you think "I'm going to make this darker and grislier than the last?"  Bruen: I mostly think about how I'm going to keep him fresh and interesting and deepen his character, I don't deliberately try to be dark, it's the way he is. Amazon.com: What is the best thing about writing about a character like Jack Taylor? Who would win in a fight, Brant or Taylor? Bruen: He continually surprises me and I get to see how deep the abyss can be. Brant would easily win the fight: Jack would be getting ready and Brant would just instantly take him down. Amazon.com: Clearly you are a big reader, you reference books so often in your novels. What books or authors do you find yourself recommending to readers again and again? Bruen: C.J. Box, Jason Starr, Daniel Woodrell, Megan Abbot, and Vicki Hendricks are among my favorites. Amazon.com: Is there an author or artist you've read or listened to lately whose work surprised or inspired you? Bruen: Elizabeth Zelvin is the light to Jack's dark. Craig McDonald wrote a hell of a debut. Alex Sokoloff scares the living daylights out of me. Louise Ure...she is just poetry in motion. Tom Piccirilli--the man is noir personified. Alan Flynn is going to be huge and find lots of readers outside of Scotland. Amazon.com: If you had to give up books or music for one year which would you give up? Bruen: Music. I can live with silence but...no reading? Shoot me now. Amazon.com: How would you describe your work to someone who has no idea what you do? Bruen: Imagine terrible circumstances that will make you laugh out loud and then want to hang yourself. Best of all, when you're a writer, you can read the work with little effort; it comes over like a chat in your favorite pub. It's like a kick in the head and a blast of Jameson, no ice, with a group of friends who are going to keep you right on the edge. (photo credit: Andrew Downes)
Product Description
Jack Taylor brings death and pain to everyone he loves. His only hope of redemption - his surrogate son, Cody - is lying in the hospital in a coma. At least he still has Ridge, his old friend from the Guards, though theirs is an unorthodox relationship. When she tells him that a boy has been crucified in Galway city, he agrees to help her search for the killer. Jack's investigations take him to many of his old haunts where he encounters ghosts, both dead and living. Everyone wants something from him, but Jack is not sure he has anything left to give. Maybe he should disappear--pocket his money and get the hell out of Galway like everyone else seems to be doing. But when the sister of the murdered boy is burned to death, Jack decides he must hunt down the killer, if only to administer his own brand of justice.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Just start at the first and proceed December 18, 2008
CPMGRP (Jupiter, FL)
"Cross" is the latest in the Jack Taylor series from Ken Bruen, Ireland's pre-eminent cop-noir fictionist (is that a word?).
Doesn't matter, if you're not familiar with his work, I envy you. Get the first in the series and follow them through. This is Celtic Noir at its best and Bruen again delivers with a love:hate protagonist you may not like, but will certainly love.
Former Guard, kicked out and persecuted for bringing bad press to Ireland's Guards (police), Taylor always manages to tick off the local constabulary while solving cases the politicos would rather be swept under the rug.
Do not be fooled into the Patteron book of the same name.
Just get them - all. Start at the beginning and prepare for a feast.
Stones in his pockets September 24, 2008
John L Murphy (Los Angeles)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The sixth installment in Bruen's "Galway noir" ex-Garda Jack Taylor's lonely, agitated, and despairing fight to, as he recalls, carry out justice in the alley rather than law in the courts, proves excoriating, harrowing, and satisfying. While I've liked-- if that's the word for such grim fiction-- all of the series, there was a bit of straining in recent episodes due to coincidences, unrelieved mayhem, and Jack's self-hatred. Not that these have diminished exactly in "Cross," but Bruen appears to have better insights into his protagonist's awareness of his conflicted nature.
"I admitted to me own self-- a thing I hated to do-- I was scared. I was alone. Your Irish bachelor in all his pitiful glory, shabby and bitter, ruined and crumbling.
With a plan." (95)
Fed up with a gentrified, commodified, faux-British, and cruel Galway remade by euros and Eurotrash, Jack resolves to sell his flat and move to Florida. There's only a curious case of dognapping and a few horrific murders to solve first. As usual, his scheme to investigate, report, and abscond goes predictably awry.
As always, Galway's a character along with the locals.
"Summer was definitely over. The peculiar light, unique to the West of Ireland, was flooding the street-- it's a blend of brightness but always with the threat of rain, and it glistens like wet crystal even as it soothes you. The edge of darkness in creeping along the horizon and you get the feeling you better grab it while it lasts." (40-41) Such evocative prose comes rarely here, all the more to enjoy it.
Eyre Square crumbles, a gay ghetto thrives nearby, a Mexican restaurant seems "very authentic," and the housing prices skyrocket despite, circa 2004, the bubble bursting for the boomtown. Guns are sold out of a van by Salthill church; it's hard to find a St. Brigid's traditional cross for sale in the religious goods shop. The pubs are always there, tempting Jack back from sobriety. This element remains one of Bruen's motifs, and he limns well the agony of the recovering alcoholic.
There's fewer of his old friends that return. Often, the price of hanging out with Jack appears to be mortal. Stewart's a welcome presence; his return from his Zen retreat (in Limerick!) to encounter Jack in a rage I found the novel's best scene. It's back with combative Ridge and the irascible Father Malachy, joined by newcomer Gina, an Italian doctor, and such momentarily glimpsed but memorably drawn folks as the mother of another ex-Guard, Mrs. Heaton; King, the owner of a suspicious canned goods exporting firm; and a rather kindly-- for once-- priest, Jim.
The plot, as before, has its twists and turns. Less manic than some before, and there's a growing sense of maturity and its costs upon the hard-living, brittle, and cantankerous haunted figure who pursues evil into the streets and even into the sea. The novel does not make a false turn. You'd have trouble starting in with number six in the series, however, and the narrative plunges you in right away where the last one, "Priest," left off. If you've stuck with Jack in the past, on the other hand, this well-crafted story takes you to its last sentence with flair, poignancy, and weight.
Another fine Bruen Mystery May 30, 2008
Regina Kiser (Saint Paul MN USA)
Bruen spins another lyrical suspenseful tale with Jack Taylor brooding about past loss while contemplating his future. Bruen is an aquired taste mixing violence and poetry with mystery and suspense, but once you've read and appreciated one of his books you are "hooked." Jack Taylor is an intriguing complex-character capable of extreme violence and extreme feeling. Ireland comes alive in these mysteries- you can almost see the places Bruen describes. Definitely a five star book.
Keeper of the Celtic Flame May 21, 2008
Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Like Galway's cold driving rain blowing horizontal from the North Atlantic, Ken Bruen's prose assaults - relentless, penetrating, no immunity. But just when you're sure he's taken the reader to the limits of despair, Bruen pulls you back in like a Jameson's and a pint of the black. Not that there's any redemption, of course - not in Bruen's vernacular - as you know that your reprieve is fleeting, and that by the time the next chapter turns, this master of contemporary noir will have you convinced that Dante never really got to the bottom of Hell.
But back to help plumb those depths is the inimitable Jack Taylor, the ex-guard, sharp-tongued curmudgeon and the perfect surrogate for Bruen's fierce Celtic rants. Coming off "Priest", I thought black was as dark as it gets, but opening "Cross" with the crucifixion of a Galway youth sets the pace for another Bruen pleasure cruise along the Styx. Remarkably, Taylor is sober - but only as penance and self punishment in denying alcohol's comfort in easing the guilt as substitute-son Cody lies dying, thanks to a bullet meant for Taylor. Not that the storyline is all that critical to Bruen's writing, but "Ban Gardai" Ridge - a female cop and as close to a friend as Taylor can claim - asks Taylor to help get to the bottom of the crucifixion. What follows is another tale of patented Taylor mayhem, unpredictable only in the limits of depravity it crosses.
What is remarkable, given Bruen's sparse and jarring prose, is the extent of the emotions it manages to convey. On nearly every page, a literary gem is hidden - one of those brilliant and pithy lines that could show up in quotes in another's work. There were passages so jolting that I literally set the book aside to reset my bearings and establish a more civilized sense of reality - an experience I can't recall with any other author. Sure, this is brutal, undeniably black, and certainly not for everyone - especially those looking for larger-than-life heroes and happy/sappy endings. But "Cross" and the Taylor novels that precede it do not use violence and darkness gratuitously, but rather as simply a slice of reality and poignancy, as Bruen breaks and twists and reassembles the English language in ways never before done.
Well done, Mr. Bruen. Keep the torch burning!
Brutal May 5, 2008
Sam Sattler (Spring, Texas)
If there is any such thing as Irish Noir, Ken Bruen is surely near the top of the list of its finest creators. His latest is Cross, the sixth novel in his Jack Taylor series and, though readers of the other five books in the series may find it hard to believe, this is perhaps the most dismally brutal book of the lot. Those in charge of bringing tourists to Galway, Ireland, may not be too happy with Mr. Bruen, I suppose, but Jack Taylor fans will want to get their hands on Cross as soon as they can.
Jack Taylor has never been what anyone would call a social success. He has few friends, no long term relationship, and very little real desire for either. And now that his mother is dead, not that his relationship with her was ever a very healthy one, he has no family. It says a lot about the man that the closest relationship in the world that he has is a love/hate thing that he has going with Ridge, a lesbian member of the Guard, a relationship that has gone on for a long time with neither of them ever expressing much in the way of feelings for the other. Sadly, each of them seems to feel the relationship to be more of an inherited obligation than a choice.
As Cross opens, Jack is still blaming himself for the accidental death of a little girl, something that understandably killed his long friendship with the child's parents. To make matters worse, the young man Jack had come to love almost as a surrogate son after reluctantly taking him on as an investigative partner, is still in a coma after taking a bullet that Jack believes was actually intended for him instead. It is little wonder that most of Jack's waking hours are spent in a constant struggle with himself to avoid falling off the wagon again. He knows that he may have already used up the last "recovery" he had in him and that if he gives into the bottle he may never be sober again.
Things are so bad, in fact, that Jack is strongly considering abandoning his beloved Galway in favor of a move to Florida of all places. But there are a few things he needs to do first. Like helping Ridge in an investigation that she hopes might finally earn her a promotion - by identifying those responsible for crucifying a young boy and leaving him for dead. And maybe, if he takes it seriously, finding out who is responsible for a rash of dog disappearances in one Galway neighborhood, or perhaps even trying to gain some closure with all those whom he has hurt and those others who haunt him even from their plots in the cemetery.
Jack Taylor is indeed a haunted man. His problem is that he knows himself well enough to understand that he has no one to blame but himself for all the failed relationships in his past. But recognizing one's problems is the easy part; doing something about them is a bit harder.
Ken Bruen novels are about human nature as much as they are about criminals and their crimes. Bruen's real story, one that continues from book-to-book, is about the evolution of Jack Taylor, a man who has been physically and mentally beaten up by life itself. None of us wants to be Jack Taylor but we surely cannot help but be fascinated by the man.
Readers new to the work of Ken Bruen would do well to read the Jack Taylor books in the order in which they were written because Jack's story is a complicated one and in order to really appreciate the struggles of a man like him it is best to understand how he got to be the man he is today.
I am already looking forward to the seventh in the series but I almost wish I were just discovering the books and that I had the first six sitting in front of me ready for a marathon reading experience. They are just that good.
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