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THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS by Ken Bruen
Thursday, April 21, 2005
THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS by Ken Bruen
St. Martin’s Minotaur $22.95
ISBN 0-312-31645-3
Hardcover March 2005
Text of my review from MYSTERY NEWS (February/March 2005)
Angst-driven and alcohol-fueled might be the best way to describe disgraced ex-Garda Siochana (Irish National Police) Jack Taylor, the star of five brilliant novels by Ken Bruen. (To date, only four of those novels have been released here in the U.S.). Jack lives everyday, nay, every moment of every day, with a sense of impending doom. A waitress in a pub urges Jack to cheer up. “You never know what’s around the corner,” she remarks. Jack responds, “If it bears the slightest resemblance to my past, even the tiniest similarity, then I’m fucked.” Indeed, his sense of foreboding is palpable to begin with, but it’s ratcheted up a notch further because he owes Bill Cassell, a local Galway hard case, a favor. Jack knows that, one day very soon, Bill is going to call in his marker. He always does. Imagine Jack’s relief when he discovers that all Bill wants in return is for him to find an elderly woman who once helped Cassell’s mother survive when she was a resident of the infamous Magdalen Laundry.
“The Magdalen” was a brutal and dehumanizing facility for “rehabilitating” wayward young women which closed its doors amid scandal and outrage over thirty years ago. Anyone unfamiliar with the kind of drug and whiskey-addled investigation usually conducted by Jack might be tempted to say that, buoyed by the apparent ease of the task with which he has been set, he quickly loses his focus. Those more accustomed with Jack’s modus operandi would be quick to point out that it is not at all clear that he had much by way of “focus” in the first place. As usual, Jack’s inability to concentrate on anything other than his own needs and compulsions leads to utter chaos. Say what you will about him, if nothing else, Taylor is at least honest with himself: “If I’d been paying attention, if I wasn’t awash in chemicals, if I was more of a Guard, if my head hadn’t been up my arse … oh God, what a ton of grief might have been averted … What I most focused on was the pint of Guinness I was going to have in about five minutes tops.”
Sensing Jack’s lack of resolve, and frustrated by the fact that Taylor is now also involved with a sexy young woman who may or may not have killed her much older husband, Cassell orders two of his goons to help Jack better prioritize his efforts on their employer’s behalf. That they do by forcing Taylor to participate in a half-assed game of Russian roulette inspired by the film, The Deer Hunter. All Bill accomplishes is to kindle in Jack a slow-burning rage for revenge which clouds his perception even further: “Pure rage can operate on either of two levels. There’s the hot, smouldering, all-encompassing kind that instantly lashes out. [Sic.]Seeking immediate annihilation. There’s the second that comes from a colder place. Fermented in ice, it withdraws upon itself, feeding on quiet ferocity for a suitable occasion … most of my battered life, I’d been afflicted with the second … I submerged in this. The claws of patience sucking deep into my psyche felt as dangerous as I’d ever felt.” It’s Jack’s preoccupation with his own agenda that stokes the fires of tragedy, suicide and psychosis in this novel.
Bruen’s terse prose in THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS is so full of latent energy that it sizzles and sparks like a downed power line on wet pavement. The plot in the novel is coherent and well-developed. The way that the seemingly disparate storylines come together is satisfying and logical. While the emotions in the book are a bit subdued for a Jack Taylor story, you get the sense that Jack’s sorry tale is building up to something bloody cataclysmic. Best of all, as the novel opens Jack has moved back into his former digs at Bailey’s Hotel … about as “old Galway” as you can get. That city, as always, plays a role in the story that goes far beyond it being merely the setting. Like a fickle lover, Galway consoles, cajoles, upbraids, torments, betrays and provides succor to Jack with almost every step he takes: “You walk down Shop Street, you better not be in a hurry. You meet your past, remnants of a shaky present and forebodings of a dark future.”
Through it all, Jack Taylor remains one of the most compelling characters in crime fiction today. The reason for that may simply be that he reminds us of all that is best and worst in each of us. You read about Jack (“I was a Guard,” his T-shirt says, “now I’m a Blackguard”) and you feel just a little better about the equilibrium – now matter how shaky – that you have been able to achieve in your own life. And you can’t escape the “there but the grace of God go I” feeling either. Like all great tragic figures, and that’s precisely what Jack is, a tragic figure for the post-Modern age, he provides his readers with catharsis in that word’s etymological sense, that of a“cleansing.”
The only mark on the negative side of the ledger to be chalked up against THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS is that once again Bruen resorts to the kind of dues ex machine ending which he has employed in the previous novels in this series. On the one hand, one wishes that the author might employ something else before this particular technique becomes mere shtick. At the same time, however, Jack’s actions at the close of this novel are wholly consistent with his personality. While the dénouement is not, perhaps, as pleasing as it might be from a purely aesthetic standpoint, it does have Jack Taylor written all over it. In Bruen’s defense, one can’t imagine the book ending any other way.
THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS proves again that Bruen’s is one of the freshest and most distinctive voices working in the genre today. (And it’s more than just the brogue, though that’s pretty damn good too, ‘dontcha know). There is, of course, something definitely Irish about his writing and anyone with some Irish blood in his or her veins will be able to detect it without perhaps being able to articulate precisely what it is. More important, however, there is something distinctively human and humane about his writing. It’s that which elevates it to the level of literature.
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THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS by Ken Bruen
St. Martin’s Minotaur $22.95
ISBN 0-312-31645-3
Hardcover March 2005
Text of my review from MYSTERY NEWS (February/March 2005)
Angst-driven and alcohol-fueled might be the best way to describe disgraced ex-Garda Siochana (Irish National Police) Jack Taylor, the star of five brilliant novels by Ken Bruen. (To date, only four of those novels have been released here in the U.S.). Jack lives everyday, nay, every moment of every day, with a sense of impending doom. A waitress in a pub urges Jack to cheer up. “You never know what’s around the corner,” she remarks. Jack responds, “If it bears the slightest resemblance to my past, even the tiniest similarity, then I’m fucked.” Indeed, his sense of foreboding is palpable to begin with, but it’s ratcheted up a notch further because he owes Bill Cassell, a local Galway hard case, a favor. Jack knows that, one day very soon, Bill is going to call in his marker. He always does. Imagine Jack’s relief when he discovers that all Bill wants in return is for him to find an elderly woman who once helped Cassell’s mother survive when she was a resident of the infamous Magdalen Laundry.
“The Magdalen” was a brutal and dehumanizing facility for “rehabilitating” wayward young women which closed its doors amid scandal and outrage over thirty years ago. Anyone unfamiliar with the kind of drug and whiskey-addled investigation usually conducted by Jack might be tempted to say that, buoyed by the apparent ease of the task with which he has been set, he quickly loses his focus. Those more accustomed with Jack’s modus operandi would be quick to point out that it is not at all clear that he had much by way of “focus” in the first place. As usual, Jack’s inability to concentrate on anything other than his own needs and compulsions leads to utter chaos. Say what you will about him, if nothing else, Taylor is at least honest with himself: “If I’d been paying attention, if I wasn’t awash in chemicals, if I was more of a Guard, if my head hadn’t been up my arse … oh God, what a ton of grief might have been averted … What I most focused on was the pint of Guinness I was going to have in about five minutes tops.”
Sensing Jack’s lack of resolve, and frustrated by the fact that Taylor is now also involved with a sexy young woman who may or may not have killed her much older husband, Cassell orders two of his goons to help Jack better prioritize his efforts on their employer’s behalf. That they do by forcing Taylor to participate in a half-assed game of Russian roulette inspired by the film, The Deer Hunter. All Bill accomplishes is to kindle in Jack a slow-burning rage for revenge which clouds his perception even further: “Pure rage can operate on either of two levels. There’s the hot, smouldering, all-encompassing kind that instantly lashes out. [Sic.]Seeking immediate annihilation. There’s the second that comes from a colder place. Fermented in ice, it withdraws upon itself, feeding on quiet ferocity for a suitable occasion … most of my battered life, I’d been afflicted with the second … I submerged in this. The claws of patience sucking deep into my psyche felt as dangerous as I’d ever felt.” It’s Jack’s preoccupation with his own agenda that stokes the fires of tragedy, suicide and psychosis in this novel.
Bruen’s terse prose in THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS is so full of latent energy that it sizzles and sparks like a downed power line on wet pavement. The plot in the novel is coherent and well-developed. The way that the seemingly disparate storylines come together is satisfying and logical. While the emotions in the book are a bit subdued for a Jack Taylor story, you get the sense that Jack’s sorry tale is building up to something bloody cataclysmic. Best of all, as the novel opens Jack has moved back into his former digs at Bailey’s Hotel … about as “old Galway” as you can get. That city, as always, plays a role in the story that goes far beyond it being merely the setting. Like a fickle lover, Galway consoles, cajoles, upbraids, torments, betrays and provides succor to Jack with almost every step he takes: “You walk down Shop Street, you better not be in a hurry. You meet your past, remnants of a shaky present and forebodings of a dark future.”
Through it all, Jack Taylor remains one of the most compelling characters in crime fiction today. The reason for that may simply be that he reminds us of all that is best and worst in each of us. You read about Jack (“I was a Guard,” his T-shirt says, “now I’m a Blackguard”) and you feel just a little better about the equilibrium – now matter how shaky – that you have been able to achieve in your own life. And you can’t escape the “there but the grace of God go I” feeling either. Like all great tragic figures, and that’s precisely what Jack is, a tragic figure for the post-Modern age, he provides his readers with catharsis in that word’s etymological sense, that of a“cleansing.”
The only mark on the negative side of the ledger to be chalked up against THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS is that once again Bruen resorts to the kind of dues ex machine ending which he has employed in the previous novels in this series. On the one hand, one wishes that the author might employ something else before this particular technique becomes mere shtick. At the same time, however, Jack’s actions at the close of this novel are wholly consistent with his personality. While the dénouement is not, perhaps, as pleasing as it might be from a purely aesthetic standpoint, it does have Jack Taylor written all over it. In Bruen’s defense, one can’t imagine the book ending any other way.
THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS proves again that Bruen’s is one of the freshest and most distinctive voices working in the genre today. (And it’s more than just the brogue, though that’s pretty damn good too, ‘dontcha know). There is, of course, something definitely Irish about his writing and anyone with some Irish blood in his or her veins will be able to detect it without perhaps being able to articulate precisely what it is. More important, however, there is something distinctively human and humane about his writing. It’s that which elevates it to the level of literature.
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