Cross

Starred review from January 21, 2008
In Shamus-winner Bruen’s brilliant sixth Jack Taylor novel (after 2007’s Priest
), the tormented Galway detective feels like a ghost in a newly prosperous city that little resembles his birthplace. Years of alcoholic dissipation have taken their toll. Jack’s apprentice and surrogate son, Cody, lies in hospital, the victim of bullets meant for Jack. His only real friend is Ridge, a lesbian Ban Gardai
(female cop), and their relationship is a complicated mixture of affection and hostility. Jack decides to cut his losses and move to America, but first he agrees to help Ridge solve a series of heinous murders. A young man’s crucifixion is followed by his sister being burned to death. As Jack investigates, he squares off against a 20-year-old girl whose grief over her religious fanatic mother’s death in a hit-and-run accident has become a black insanity that demands biblical vengeance. Bruen riffs on different meanings and implications of the word cross
throughout, and his insights into pain, loss and Irishness are unforgettable.

January 15, 2008
As a result of a shooting meant to kill Galway PI Jack Taylor ("Priest"), Cody, his young apprentice and surrogate son, lies comatose and close to death in the hospital. Meanwhile, Taylor tries to make sense of the brutal murder by crucifixion of a young man and the burning death of the victim's sister. As always, things are not as they appear, and there is more than one shock for Taylor and the reader at book's end. Shamus and Macavity Award winner Bruen should be taken in small doses, as his idea of "noir" may be too dark for most. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 11/1/07.]

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2008
In this fifth Jack Taylor novel, a young man has been literally crucified in Galway city, and his sister immolated, but Taylor is so much on the existential ropes that it takes the former Garda-officer-turned-PI about 150 pages before he can rouse himself to investigate. Whats troubling Taylor is that Cody, his surrogate son, is in a coma induced by gunshots intended for Taylor. Nearly every person hes ever cared about is now in a grave. In addition, hes on the wagon, and abstinence and Taylor have a torturous relationship. (Although he stops in every pub and orders a pint of Guinness and a tot of Jameson, he doesnt drink them.) Fueling his rage and desperation still further are the no-smoking signs he sees plastered throughout his city. Indeed, nearly everything about the new Ireland fuels his rage. Taylors resolution of the two ghastly murders is almost perfunctory, and Cross loses its sharp edge once he gets to work. But, oh, those first 150 pages offer an amazing portrait of a peculiarly Irish form of despair, and nary a page passes without a memorably mordant laugh, a wonderful turn of phrase, or an aphorism that any crime fan will want to share with another devotee.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)