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    Cross: A Jack Taylor Novel
    Cross: A Jack Taylor Novel
    Cross: A Jack Taylor Novel
    Ebook210 pages3 hours

    Cross: A Jack Taylor Novel

    By Ken Bruen

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Uncovering the Shadows of Galway City

    Fall into a raw and violent quest for justice in Ken Bruen's engrossing mystery novel, Cross. Set against the backdrop of Galway, Ireland, the narrative plunges into the abyss of grim secrets hidden within the city.

    Follow Jack Taylor, a weathered private investigator, who is drawn into a hellish investigation by an old friend from the Guards. A boy brutally crucified and a sister burnt to death unravel a horrifying wave of crimes–a strain of modern-day crucifixions. Jack's investigations take him to many of his old haunts where he encounters ghosts, both dead and living.

    Battling his desires for redemption and the ceaseless need to disappear, Jack pivots between personal grief and his relentless pursuit for the killer. With prose as sharp as a scalpel, this intense story of mystery, suspense, and retribution, offers a sinister spin on the classic detective noir tale.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateMar 4, 2008
    ISBN9781429982825
    Cross: A Jack Taylor Novel
    Author

    Ken Bruen

    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.

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    Reviews for Cross

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    • 4/5
      Jack Taylor is in bad shape: his friends are dead or almost there, his doc says he will die if he starts drinking again and he's a stage 9 alcoholic, he was thrown out of the Guards long ago but they won't forget, and his country has changed so much he doesn’t know it. And that’s before the book starts laying layer upon layer of crap on our failed detective Taylor.
      Bruen has a crisp, clean style, but the book is padded with white space. The never-ending quotations and references are more under control these days. He nails the underside of Ireland. But he is the most depressing writer I have ever read--so depressing that he makes you feel lucky even with your mucked-up, not-good-forrmuch life.
    • 4/5
      [Cross] by Ken BruenJack Taylor series Book #34.5&#9733'sJack Taylor used to be cop...a very good cop... and then life got in the way and Jack's life unraveled. Along with a Cody...a young man that refused to take no for an answer...they set out on the next best thing than being a cop that Jack could find... being a private investigator. Jack's personal life gets in the way in this endeavor also and [Cross] opens with Cody in a coma in the hospital barely hanging onto life and Jack taking up residence at any local Galway pub. It seems there are times when Jack is merely reacting to events and appears lost in a world he no longer understands.Ken Brune's writing is like no one else's that I can think of. He brings his characters to life with such imagination. Jack Taylor reminds me of a train wreck on it's way to happen. You don't want to watch but you can't turn away. My grandmother and mother came from Ireland and I can see where the author gives the reader a real sense of the Irish...the religion...the cultural and the historic influences on their lives. This series and the characters are diffidently unique.
    • 4/5
      Another page turner from Bruen.
    • 4/5
      Jack Taylor is a washed-up, alcoholic (but off the booze for the moment) ex Guarda who makes a living looking into things.
      He's at the end of his rope from the beginning of the book because he feels responsible for a young boy who was shot and is in a coma because of him. His one friend is undergoing medical test and asks for his help looking into a nasty murder of a young boy.
      Jack stumbles his way through various investigations, basically mucking up just about everything he touches.
      This is a grey, grim, violent book touched with humour and despair and very jaundiced views of life and Irish society in particular.
    • 5/5
      Just recently I watched the Jack Taylor series on television for the first time. Set in Galway, Ireland, this hard-boiled mystery series prompted me to seek out Ken Bruen's books. I'm happy to say they are just as enjoyable. I admit it - I'm in love with Jack Taylor, a loveable (in my opinion) rogue who wants to take care of everyone even though he can barely take care of himself. Iain Glen, the actor who played Jack Taylor, could quite well be the origin of my swooning but he had great material to work with. If you enjoy emerald noir - hard-boiled Irish mysteries - you'll love Bruen's creation
    • 4/5
      “A cross offers two options: you can be nailed to it…or lie on it, as a voluntary act.”-Irish sayingDeath, pain and trouble follow Jack Taylor like a shadow. He cannot shake it, even while he’s off the booze and cigarettes. Our favorite ex-guard is back and this time he is looking into the murder of a boy, who was found crucified. Of course, this takes Jack to some dark places and he gets to stare down the embodiment of evil.I’m not sure if there is a more consistent series than this one. It’s the sixth book and it’s just as strong as the earlier entries. Read it!
    • 4/5
      A young man is crucified and the Guards have no leads whatsoever. Ridge thinks that Jack's nose for finding might be able to sniff something out and she badly wants the promotion that seems to be on offer to anyone who can crack the case. Jack agrees to help and soon finds himself in a whole heap of trouble (when is he not?). He's also agreed to investigate the disappearance of several dogs from the same neighbourhood but passes this on to someone else while he deals with the other case (and everything else that's going on in his life) but this end of things does not go well. We also find out how the ending of the previous book, [Priest], transpires and also have Jack contemplating packing up and heading off to America as with the modernisation the old haunts of Galway are disappearing faster than his friends and acquaintances.As hard hitting as a hurley to the kneecap.
    • 4/5
      First Line: It took them a time to crucify the kid.Jack Taylor, free for the moment from drugs, booze and nicotine, would also like to be free of any sort of human involvement. He has a good reason for feeling this way: he brings pain and death to everyone he loves. His surrogate son, Cody, is lying in the hospital in a coma, and Jack visits everyday-- touching Cody, talking to him, trying to coax him back among the living.In the meantime, dogs are going missing in a Galway neighborhood and one of the residents wants to hire Jack to find out what is happening. Ridge, his old friend from the Guards, lets her hair down. It seems she has a lump in her breast, and she's having a horrible time coping with all the males in the police force. When Jack says something about helping her, she then tells him that a boy has been found crucified, and if he could steer her to the killer, it could mean a promotion and better working conditions, and Jack can't say no.It seems that everyone wants something from Jack, and he isn't sure he has anything left to give. At this point, the thought of disappearing sounds wonderful.I normally have little patience for characters who are alcoholics or druggies. I can find alcoholics in my own family, and I have never ever understood the allure of drugs. However, depression I can understand, and Jack has more than his share. Through everything, his books have been the only friends who've never deserted him, and I can understand that, too. Perhaps that's why I cut Jack Taylor slack when I won't so many other characters in the same situation. I honestly don't know. " As the barman put the drinks down, I wondered if I should ask him his name. But then we'd probably get friendly and something terrible would happen to him."If Jack Taylor can get you hooked, then your emotional involvement can be very high. The ending of one of the books in this series had me cry out loud in pain and shock and despair. I just don't do that... but I did do it when reading about Jack Taylor.One of the plot threads in Cross was a bit too predictable, but it's still a lean, mean, beautifully written book. At this point, I simply have to know what happens to Jack.
    • 5/5
      Horrific crimes take place around Galway and once again, Jack Taylor finds a way to get directly involved. A boy is found crucified and his sister burned to death shortly thereafter. When Jack is approached to look into things, he becomes wrapped up with many troubled and dangerous characters.This is Irish noir at its best - Bruen's portrayal of such tragic characters is brilliant and the Galway setting allows the reader to picture how things are and were in one of Ireland's treasures.Bruen delivers again!
    • 3/5
      Bruen is a little too noirish for me but he does evoke the culture, atmosphere and sense of place of Galway and Ireland. Since Galway is one of my favorite places in the world, I love reading about it.
    • 5/5
      When Cross opens, we hardly recognize Jack Taylor. He's sober, relatively lucid, and has been offered an absurd amount of money to sell his Galway apartment. It's not all sunshine and light, though. Cody, the young man Jack has come to see as nearly an adopted son, lies in a coma from a bullet meant for Jack, who feels deep remorse and guilt. Bruen revels in guilt throughout the Taylor novels and Cross is no exception. Irish guilt and Catholic guilt all play a part, with the ghosts of Jack's past haunting him even as he makes plans to leave Galway forever and move to America. Jack's sort-of friend Ridge, a local policewoman, asks his help in solving a perplexing and brutal murder. A young man has been murdered by crucifixion, a method of death deeply symbolic in Catholic Ireland. Jack stumbles along the first half of the novel, dealing with personal demons before he gets around to attacking the case in question, but Bruen's deeply sympathetic portrayal of Taylor and modern Ireland in general is gripping in its own right. The real action takes place in the final third of the novel, where Jack solves the murder in his own unique way. It wouldn't be a Ken Bruen novel if there weren't a few maddening twists to the tale, this used to frustrate me, but know I know it's just part of his story-telling style. Like John Burdett and James Lee Burke, Bruen is one of the finest and most unflinching crime novelists of today, and this is one of his best stories to date. It is a dark tale not for the faint of heart, but the good stuff never is.
    • 4/5
      I picked up Cross during a recent vacation to Ireland and Scotland. Whenever I travel, I like to pick up a book or two (fiction or non-, no preference) by a local author. As a person who loves to read, I feel it gives me a bit more flavor of the area I'm visiting. Our stay in Ireland was based in Galway, current home of Ken Bruen. I picked up his book in a local store after perusing for about an hour. I was in the middle of Trinities by Nick Tosches, a brutal mob book, and was intrigued by the cover for Cross. I suppose Trinities had me in the mood. I was tipped over the edge when I read a review that stated something like, "Bruen is Ireland's match for Ian Rankin". I like Rankin so, SOLD!Cross is a novel in Bruen's Jack Taylor series that revolves around some recent murders in Galway that started with a crucifixion in the center of town. (Before you shout at me for spoilers, that's the first chapter of the book.) I found the writing to be engrossing albeit simple and straightforward. I liked its simplicity as I don't see a need for a flowery-written crime novel. Bruen builds a solid image of his characters and of Galway itself. Taylor and his sketchy friends/acquaintances were a lot of fun to envision.All in all, I really enjoyed the book. It's a VERY quick read as it appears that the font used is larger than most. It really looks like a large print book. Now having six other Bruen books, it appears to be the norm. I suppose he just writes novellas that the publisher wants to put out as full novels. I ended up passing my copy of Cross on to my father-in-law who in turn gave me five Bruen novels he'd already read. Nice trade! If you're a Bruen fan, or just a fan of crime novels in general, Cross is well worth your time.*****SPOILERS HEREAFTER*****The plot is one that tracks the tales of a two characters whose lives eventually cross. There's the daughter of the family that is performing the killings and there's Jack Taylor. Jack's now sober but struggling to remain so. He's even debating a move to the U.s. because he's so frustrated with the modernization of Galway and it's rapidly depleting traditions.The mother of the family was lost to a driving accident several years prior. The young man who was responsible for the accident fled from Ireland to London. The daughter of the family has become psychotic and is leading her father and brother in brutally murdering the siblings of the AWOL man to draw him home. Taylor's friends (former co-worker, former drug dealer, etc.) and enemies (priest) get involved in the detective work along the way.

    Book preview

    Cross - Ken Bruen

    e9781429982825_cover.jpge9781429982825_i0001.jpg

    For

    David Zeltersman … True Noir,

    Jim Winter … a Writer of Dark Beauty,

    Gerry Hanberry … the Poet of the Western World

    Table of Contents

    Title Page

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    Also by KEN BRUEN

    Copyright Page

    1

    ‘A cross is only agony if you are aware of it.’

    Irish saying

    It took them a time to crucify the kid. Not that he was giving them any trouble; in fact, he’d been almost cooperative. No, the problem was getting the nails into his palms – they kept hitting bone.

    Meanwhile, the kid was muttering something.

    The younger one said, ‘Whimpering for his mother.’

    The girl leaned close and said in a tone of surprise, ‘He’s praying.’

    What was she expecting – a song?

    The father lifted the hammer, said, ‘It’s going to be light soon.’

    Sure enough, the first rays of dawn cutting across the small hill, throwing a splatter of light across the figure on the cross, looked almost like care.

    ‘Why aren’t you bloody dead?’

    How to reply? I wanted to say, ‘Tried my level best, really, I wanted to die. Surviving was not my plan, honestly.’

    Malachy was my old arch enemy, my nemesis, and, like the best of ancient Irish adversaries, I’d even saved his arse once.

    He was the heaviest smoker I’d ever met and God knows I’ve met me share. He now chain-lit another, growled, ‘They shot the wrong fucker.’

    Lovely language from a priest, right? But Malachy never followed any clerical rule I’d ever heard of. He meant Cody, a young kid who I saw as my surrogate son and who had taken the bullets meant for me. Even now, he lay in a coma and his chances of survival varied from real low to plain abysmal.

    The shooting hadn’t helped my limp, the result of a beating with a hurley. I was thus limping along the canal, seeing the ducks but not appreciating them as I once had. Nature no longer held any merit. Heard my name called and there was Father Malachy, the bane of my life. When I ended up trying to help him, was he grateful? Was he fuck. He had the most addictive personality I’d ever met, be it nicotine, cakes, tea or simply aggression, and addictive personalities are my forte. I’ve always wanted to say my forte – gives a hint of learning, but not showy with it. In truth, my forte was booze. He was looking grumpy, shabby and priestly. That is, furtive.

    He had greeted me with that crack about being bloody dead and seemed downright angry. He was dressed in the clerical gear: black suit shiny from wear and the pants misshapen, shoes that looked like they’d given ten years’ hard service. Dandruff lined his shoulders like a gentle fall of snow.

    I said, ‘Nice to see you too.’ Let a sprinkle of granite leak over the words and kept my eyes fixed on him. He flicked the butt into the water, startling the ducks.

    I added, ‘Still concerned for the environment?’

    His lip curling in distaste, he snapped, ‘Is that sarcasm? Don’t you try that stuff on me, boyo.’

    The summer was nearly done. Already you could feel that hint of the Galway winter bite; soon the evenings would be getting dark earlier, and if I’d only known, darkness of a whole other hue was coming down the pike. But all I heard were the sounds of the college, just a tutorial away from where we stood. Galway is one of those cities where sound carries along the breeze like the faintest whisper of prayers you never said, muted but present.

    I turned my attention afresh to Malachy. We were back to our old antagonism, business as usual.

    Before I could reply he said, ‘I gave the boy the last rites, did you know that? Anointed him with the oils. They thought he was a goner.’

    I suppose gratitude was expected, but I went, ‘Isn’t that, like, your job, ministering to the sick, comforting the dying, stuff like that?’

    He gave me the full appraisal, as if I’d somehow tricked him, said, ‘You look like death warmed up.’

    I turned to go, shot, ‘That’s a help.’

    Fumbling for another cig, he asked, ‘Did they find the shooter?’

    Good question. Ni Iomaire – in English, Ridge, a female Guard, known as a Ban Gardai – had told me they’d ruled out one of the suspects, a stalker I’d leaned on. He was in Dublin on the day of the shooting. That left a woman, Kate Clare, sister of a suspected priest-killer. I didn’t mention her to Ridge. It was complicated: I’d felt responsible for the death of her brother, and if she shot at me, I wasn’t all that sure what the hell I wanted to do. She may also have killed others. I’d figured I’d deal with her when I regained my strength.

    I said to Malachy, ‘No, they ruled out the prime suspect.’

    He wasn’t satisfied with that. ‘So, the person who shot your friend is still out there?’

    I didn’t want to discuss this, especially not with him, said, ‘Not much escapes you.’

    Then he abruptly changed tack. ‘You ever visit your mother’s grave?’

    There are many crimes in the Irish lexicon, odd actions that in the UK wouldn’t even rate a mention, but here were nigh on unforgivable.

    Topping the list are:

    Silence or reticence. You’ve got to be able to chat, preferably incessantly. Making sense isn’t even part of the equation.

    Not buying a round. You might think no one notices, but they do.

    Having notions, ideas above your imagined station.

    Neglecting the grave of your family.

    There are others, such as having a posh accent, disliking hurling, watching BBC, but they are the second division. There’s a way back from them, but the first division, you are fucked.

    I tried, ‘Believe it or not, when you’re visiting a shot boy, shot full of bloody holes, it’s harder than you might think to nip out to the cemetery.’

    He blew that off, said, "Tis a thundering disgrace.’

    The current national disgrace was the major hospitals admitting they’d been selling the body parts of dead children without the permission of the parents. Even the tax shenanigans of the country’s politicians paled in comparison to this. The Government had pledged that heads would roll – translate as, scapegoats would be found. I’d had enough of Malachy and made to move away.

    He asked, ‘What do you make of the crucifixion?’

    I was lost. Was this some metaphysical query? I went for the stock reply. ‘I take it as an article of faith.’

    Lame, right?

    We’d been walking, walking and sparring, and had reached a shop at the top of the canal. Moved under the store’s canopy as drops of rain began to fall.

    A man emerged, stopped, pointed at a No Smoking decal, barked, ‘Can’t you read?’

    Malachy rounded on him, went, ‘Can’t you mind your own business? Fuck off.’

    As I said, not your expected religious reply.

    The man hesitated then stomped away.

    Malachy glared at me, then said, ‘When the Prods crucified some poor hoor two years ago, I believed it was just one more variation on the punishment stuff that paramilitaries do, but I thought it was confined to the North.’

    I tried for deep, said, ‘Nothing is confined to the North.’

    He was disgusted, began to walk away and said, ‘You’re drinking again. Why did I think I could talk sensible to you?’

    I watched him amble off, scratching his head, a cloud of light dandruff in his wake. It never occurred to me the horror he’d mentioned would have anything to do with me. Boy, was I wrong about that.

    The booze, sure, I was nearly drinking again. You get shot at, you’re going to have a lot of shots in the aftermath. Course you. are. It’s cast-iron justification. More and more, I’d begun to re-walk my city. What is it Bruce Springsteen titled his New York, ‘My City Of Ruins’? At the back of my mind was the seed of escape, get the hell out, so I’d decided to see my town from the ground down. Ground zero.

    I moved from the canal to St Joseph’s Church, and a little along that road is what the locals now term Little Africa. A whole area of shops, apartments, businesses run by Nigerians, Ugandans, Zambesians, people from every part of the massive continent. To me, a white Irish Catholic, it was a staggering change, little black kids playing in the streets, drum beats echoing from open windows, and the women were beautiful. I saw dazzling shawls, scarves, dresses of every variety. And friendly … If you smiled at them, they responded with true warmth.

    And that, despite the despicable graffiti on the walls:

    Non Irish Not Welcome

    Irish Nazis … a shame of epic proportion.

    An elderly black man was moving along in front of me and I said, ‘How you doing?’

    He gave me a look of amazement, then his face lit up and he said, ‘I be doing real good, mon. And you, brother, how you be doing?’

    I ventured I was doing OK and fuck, it made me whole day. I moved on, a near smile on me own face. Hitting the top of Dominic Street, I turned left and strolled towards the Small Crane.

    Isn’t that a marvellous name? So evocative, and you just have to ask … is there a large crane?

    No.

    Then you hit the pink triangle. I shit thee not. In Galway. A gay ghetto. Me father would turn in his grave.

    Me, I’m delighted.

    Keep the city moving, keep it mixed, blended, and just maybe we’ll stop killing our own selves over hundreds of years of so-called religious difference.

    But I was getting too deep for me own liking, muttered, ‘Bit late for you to be getting a social/political conscience.’

    There’s a lesbian bar on the corner and I would have loved me bigoted mother to know that. She’d have put a match to it and then got a Mass said.

    I had quickened my pace, was on Quay Street, the Temple Bar of Galway, smaller but no less riotous, bastion of English hen parties and general mayhem, imported or otherwise. I turned at the flash hotel called Brennan’s Yard, where the literati drank.

    I had dreaded returning to my apartment. There’s a Vince Gill song, ‘I Never Knew Lonely’. You live on your own, see a loved one go down, there’s few depressions like entering an empty apartment, the silent echoes mocking you. I wanted to roar, ‘Honey, I’m home.’

    I walked slowly up the stairs of my building, dread in my gut, the keys in my hand. There was a key ring attached, given to me by Cody, it had a Sherlock Holmes figurine. I took a deep breath, turned the key. I’d been to the off-licence, got my back-up.

    Bottle of Jameson in my hand, I walked in, found a glass, poured a healthy measure, toasted, ‘Welcome home, shithead.’

    No matter what the cost – and I’ve paid as dear a price as there is – those first moments when the booze lights your world, there is nothing … nothing to touch that. Put the cap on the bottle. I was back to the goddamn longing, to trying to keep within a certain level of balance. Shite, I’d been down this road a thousand times, never worked, always ended in disaster. The silence in the room was deafening.

    I’d been doing this demented stuff a while now, buying booze, pouring it and then pouring it down the toilet, each time muttering like a befuddled mantra, ‘Down the toilet, like my life.’

    Before the shooting – What a line that is, a real conversation spinner, beats Where I took my vacation hands down – I’d been trying to implement changes, had decided to change the things I could. Got as far as buying a whole new range of music, stuff I’d been reading about for years but never got round to hearing. Picked up a CD by Tom Russell, little realizing the serendipity of one track. The album was titled Modern Art and he had a recording of Bukowski’s poem ‘Crucifix In A Death Hand’.

    I noticed I had the volume on full and wondered if me hearing was going. I poured the whiskey down the toilet. Once the drink compulsion eased, I looked round my home. Was there a single item that meant anything? The books were lined against the wall, a thin layer of dust on the spines. Like the shadows on my life, the dust had settled slowly and it didn’t seem like anyone was going to eradicate it.

    2

    ‘Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness.’

    Pascal, Pensées, 412

    The girl was humming softly, an old Irish melody she no longer knew the name of. It was her mother’s song and sometimes, if the girl turned real quick, she thought she could catch a glimpse of her mother, those blue eyes fixed on something in the distance, her slight figure, like a tiny ballerina, shimmering in the half light of the dying day.

    She never told anyone of this, hugged it to herself like the softest fabric, like the piece of Irish linen her mother had put so much value on. It had been brought out on special occasions, handled with loving care and then put away, her mother saying in that soft Irish lilt, ‘This will be yours some day, alannah.’

    Alannah – my child – the first Irish word that held any real significance for her.

    The girl’s eyes moved around the room: cheap wallpaper was peeling from the top, a thin strip of carpet barely covered the floor and the windows badly needed to be cleaned. Her mother would never have allowed that, those windows would have been sparkling.

    Near the door was the cross, a heavy hand-carved piece, the features of the Christ outlining the torment, the nails clearly visible in the hands and feet. Her mind flashed to that other figure and she lingered on the image for a time. It was burned into her memory like a promise she’d made to her mother, and in her own way she had fulfilled the pledge. There was so much to do yet.

    And then she smiled. The mantra her mother had used: ‘So much to do.’

    She was maybe six, and her mother had decided to give the house a

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