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    The Dramatist: A Jack Taylor Novel
    The Dramatist: A Jack Taylor Novel
    The Dramatist: A Jack Taylor Novel
    Ebook216 pages2 hours

    The Dramatist: A Jack Taylor Novel

    By Ken Bruen

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    A shadowy killer is stalking Galway in The Dramatist, the fourth lean and lethal entry in the critically-acclaimed, award-winning Jack Taylor series from author Ken Bruen.

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateMar 6, 2007
    ISBN9781429902366
    The Dramatist: A Jack Taylor Novel
    Author

    Ken Bruen

    Ken Bruen is one of the most prominent Irish crime writers of the last two decades. He received a doctorate in metaphysics, taught English in South Africa, and then became a crime novelist. He is the recipient of two Barry Awards, two Shamus Awards and has twice been a finalist for the Edgar Award. He lives in Galway, Ireland.

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    Reviews for The Dramatist

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      This is more a series that explores the psyche of the tormented Jack Taylor than a mystery series. We all know that Jack has more demons than two ordinary people. But Jack hasn't too much trouble with the mystery of finding the killer of two girls but he does have a lot of trouble dealing with issues from his past. He is clean and sober through most of the book until a catastrophic event at the end changes everything. I love Jack and Ken Bruen does a wonderful job of creating this marvellous character. I can't wait for the next one.
    • 4/5
      Private investigator and former policeman Jack Taylor is back for his fourth case - and he's clean and sober for once! His former dealer asks him to investigate the death of his sister. She was found dead down some stairs - below her a play by John Millington Synge with some very strange handwritten annotations. First everything looks like an unhappy accident. When a second girl dies the same way, Jack Taylor, who at the same time struggles with his private life, with the shadows of his past, takes the job seriously.Even in book number 4 I still sympathize with the protagonist. His battle against his addictions, the tense relationships to his mother and his (former) love - everything is decribed in a very dry way without frills. And in all that human darkness there shines a little light of hope in the form of a three year-old girl with down syndrome - Taylor's godchild, whose light won't last for long. And the reader closes the book with the feeling that the real drama for Taylor has only started to spread out.
    • 3/5
      Beautifully written but very dark.
    • 5/5
      Roughly as many friends told me I would love Ken Bruen as told me I wouldn’t. I would love him because he is a brilliant writer or I wouldn’t because noir is not really my thing and/or I wouldn’t ‘get’ him.

      ‘They’ (or half of them anyway) were right. I loved The Dramatist.

      It is the fourth novel in a series featuring Jack Taylor, former policeman in the Irish Guarda with a self-destructive personality that manifests itself most obviously in a series of addictions (alcohol, booze, nicotine) and poor handling of personal relationships. At the start of The Dramatist he is newly sober (through choice) and free of illegal drugs (because his cocaine dealer is in prison). Ostensibly the plot is driven by Taylor being asked by said drug dealer to investigate the death of his sister which has been ruled an accident by police. But really it is just the continuing story of Jack’s meandering, blighted life.

      I don’t know how to pitch that the story of one Irish drunk’s life is worth reading so you’ll just have to trust me. Despite the fact that Jack’s investigation runs to not much more than a couple of phone calls and badgering one of his old colleagues a few times there is a load going on here and it’s all captivating. With black ‘you should feel guilty for laughing’ humour Jack struggles with his addictions, entangles himself with women, a priest and some nasty vigilantes and observes the political and social changes in his world in a way that makes it impossible to stop reading. I should also point out that although I haven’t read the first three books in the series there are enough reminiscences to ensure I didn’t feel lost.

      The story is told in Jack’s first-person point of view which is normally not something I enjoy but is well-suited here as it allows us to see the best and the worst of Jack who may not be likable but is compelling. Friends, of the kind that don’t mind being dismissed most of the time, and the inevitable enemies swirl in and around Jack’s life. Sometimes he is nice to them, like the lovely moment when he tries to cheer up the elderly lady who runs the small hotel he lives in, but more often he isn’t, because it just doesn’t come naturally. All of them though are totally believable and I really did get sucked into this world. I was going to say ‘drawn into’ but that would suggest I had a choice and after the first 10 minutes or so I had to keep listening.

      To be fair the other half of my friends were right too, I don’t always enjoy noir. It’s not the darkness of the subject I mind nearly as much as when there is absolute certainty from the outset that the darkness will prevail. Where there is certainty there is boredom for me as a reader. I like most of all to be kept wondering. What Bruen does to perfection with The Dramatist is tease readers with the possibility that things might not end in darkness after all. While there are events in the story that are very dark indeed there are also incidents in which things for Jack border on peachy and therein lies the tantalising hook. Will this incident trigger his downward spiral? Or that one? Or might there not be a downturn at all? Until the last moment of the book I didn’t know and that’s all I can ask.

      It was the end that tipped the book from good to great for me. It’s 36 hours since I uttered a loud “no” upon hearing the completely unexpected event and I still can’t quite rid myself of a lingering sadness. But I also know that the ending was the perfect one for the book and that’s such a rare thing to find that I will savour it, sadness and all.
    • 5/5
      The fourth book in the Jack Taylor series finds our favourite sometime Galway PI off the drink and drugs and even contemplating giving up the cigarettes too. His drug dealer, Stewart, has been banged up and Jack doesn't want the rigmarole of finding a new one so gave them up and thought he might as well do the same with the booze to get all the hurt out in one go. Six months go by and still clean and sober when Cathy saks him to go see Stewart and when he does he's asked to look into the death of Stewart's sister. She was found at the bottom of her stairs with a broken neck. The verdict pronounced accidental death but Stewart thinks not due to the book that was found under her body. His sister hated the author, J.M. Synge. It's only when a second body is found in similar circumstances that Jack actually believes there may be something to what Stewart has to say after all.While this is going on, Jack also has to deal with his mother's worsening health along with a vigilante group called The Pikemen and the fact that former lover Ann Henderson's new husband doesn't seem to like him. This series is really brutal on Jack and it's a wonder he's survived until now. How much more can teh guy take before he returns to his old ways to numb the pain again?Once again my wishlist has grown due to the quotes that are included as chapter markers and marked off some music to check out as well. Thank you Mr. Bruen but I'm seriously wondering if you have a heart with the punishment you dole out to your characters.
    • 2/5
      The ending was quite good... brilliant, even, but I had to grit my teeth and listen through (audiobook) Bruen's painfully too self-aware Jack Taylor for the first four and a half hours (of a five hour reading).I know that Bruen's got a shining reputation as a master of Irish hard boiled crime fiction, but I find it too heavy handed, too obviously *written*, to be enjoyable as a story.
    • 2/5
      4th in the series, rated 2**, completed 5/27/11. About 240 pages, but a lot of very white pages. Bruen's favorite songs, books, movies wrapped around a short story involving the murder of two young women falling down stairs both with a book by the same author but the Guard doesn't see a connection, a vigilante group, the murder of a Guard who was the husband of one of jack's exes, and the tragic death of a key child ( and a good recommendation for an author of noir crime stories). It's all pretty thin. Why do I read this series, like Jack I keep swearing off it but keep coming back. Am I now ready to stay dry?
    • 4/5
      Page turner but very sad and depressing. An Irishman kicked off the Garda for drinking and drugs struggles through the entire book while trying to solve the murder of the sister of his former drug supplier. Another girl is murdered and he becomes acquainted with a group of vigilantes, his mother dies in a shabby nursing home, he gets beaten up and now has a permanent limp. Does solve the murders but the book has a shocking ending.
    • 4/5
      Oh my. After reading this installment of the Jack Taylor series, I am hard pressed to figure out how much worse things can get for Jack. I've long said that making Jack Taylor's acquaintance through reading is like watching a train about to wreck on its tracks...you know that something terrible is about to happen, but the reality of how bad it's going to be keeps you watching. But frankly, I wasn't prepared for this one.As the novel opens, Jack's drug dealer (the very well-dressed, erudite young man) is in prison, put away for six years. He makes it known through Cathy that his sister had been killed and the crime scene made to look like an accident. He wants Jack to investigate. All that was found that was even a little off was a copy of a work by John Millington Synge near the body. However, Jack doesn't see murder, and besides, he has his hands full with the husband of an ex-lover. Add to this a crazy vigilante group and a newly-found woman, and you understand why Jack takes his time about getting to the drug dealer's problem. But when a second young woman dies the same way, and a book by Synge is found underneath her body, Jack's forced to take notice.I love these books, I love these characters, and although Taylor is pitiful (and I do mean just absolutely pitiful), I can't get enough of this guy. Highly recommended -- if you're after it for the mystery aspect only, you'll miss so much more in this series. I think people who've been following the series will enjoy it (my guess, before I read the next in the series it's a turning point) and will want as I did to read it soon after the Magdalen Martyrs. These books all turn on Jack Taylor's character -- not the element of the whodunits embedded into the story by the author.Fabulous - and I'm off to order the next. Do NOT read this one without the 3 previous behind you.
    • 5/5
      Jack's clean and sober, and attending mass regularly. He's in danger of turning into something resembling an upstanding citizen, but this is Jack Taylor we're talking about. Asked to investigate the supposedly accidental death of student, he becomes suspicious of foul play when another student is found dead in very similar circumstances. Typically brilliant Bruen writing, and after that ending I just have to get hold of the next book as soon as I can.

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    The Dramatist - Ken Bruen

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