Before we begin, I must confess. I am an addict. Yes, that's right, an addict. A bookaholic. I can not walk past a bookstore. When I'm in Galway you'll find me in Eason's or Kenny's or Charlie Byrne's, often absorbed, intoxicated, in the suspense and thriller shelves. Jack Higgins, James Patterson, Jeffery Deaver, Ken Follett, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly …….. just some of the sources of my drugs. …….

On one of those days, about two years ago, a most unusual, inauspicious looking volume had squeezed its way in between the Clancys and the Deavers on the shelves at Eason's. I couldn't resist. What addict can resist a new drug? I had never heard of the publisher with the unpromising name: the Do Not Press. And the author's name rang no bells either. Ken Bruen, an unusual name I thought. I browsed the author bio: born in Galway , turned down a place at RADA and then completed an MA in English at Trinity and a PhD in metaphysics, spending the next twenty-five years as an English teacher in Africa, Japan, S.E. Asia and South America, with the added note that he'd been arrested in drunken brawls everywhere from South America to Vietnam! His own story was, in itself, the stuff of thrillers I thought.

Two weeks ago my addiction found me in Charlie Byrne's again and face to face with Ken Bruen in the flesh. He was there in preparation for the launch of his latest novel, The Killing of the Tinkers, by Brandon. I met him and he invited me to the launch a few days later. On Tuesday last we met again to talk about Ken and about his work. Well, we only had an hour and a half but I came away with enough material for a small novella. How does one capture the essence of Ken Bruen in a couple of hundred words. Well, the answer is simple: you can't. With that caveat up front, I'm now going to be foolhardy enough to try and give you a sense of Ken. The personal creative journey that brought him here started with a scholarship to Trinity where he edited their magazine (and did much of the writing too). For the next eight years he only wrote poetry for 'discipline' and to achieve the 'precision of language'. It was only after that apprenticeship and honing of language that he felt he was ready to write a novel. He was twenty-eight years old and he wrote three mainstream works, the first one titled Funeral. They have since disappeared into that limbo of out-of-print works although some are apparently showing up as collector's items on the internet. Ken made the first jump into the genre of the crime novel with Rilke on Black written in an American style but set in London where Ken was teaching inner city kids in Brixton. That novel was nominated for the First Blood award for Best First Crime Novel of '95.

But it meant more than that to Ken. It became a way to communicate with his Brixton street kids; as Ken tells it, an experience that began with, "Who's this Rilke dude?" and progressed to "Shit man, that's not bad!" Publishers shied away from one of his next novels, The Hackman Blues, (yes, the Hackman in the title is indeed Gene Hackman, the movie star, a hero of Ken's, who took exception to the use of his name ..). This is when Ken found the Do Not Press, a start-up publisher who have published many of Ken's novels and are now enjoying much success too. Stanley Kubrick was interested in filming Rilke on Black but he became engrossed in the Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman film, Eyes Wide Shut, and never did get around to it. Ken has written eleven novels, the last two set in Ireland and centred around the persona of Jack Taylor: The Guards and The Killing of the Tinkers, both published by Brandon. The Guards was launched in London by Faye Weldon at the Groucho Club, an evening I understand that lasted well into the next morning! Both of these have being published in the US by St. Martin's Press and, in Australia, by Duffy and Snellgrove. Ken is off to Australia in July to make the round of interviews, readings, and book-signings. He relishes traveling and says that Galway is home base but he must always satisfy his yearning to travel. In the meantime he's just finished his third novel in the Jack Taylor series and is half way through Missing Boys?, a six part series for the BBC. His non-fiction book Closure of an Irish Kind is due out soon from St. Martin's Press in the US. It is more than autobiographical. It covers Ken's life experiences such as his time as a security guard at the World Trade Center in New York, cancer (an illness that has visited Ken's family), AIDS (a good friend died from that), suicide, metaphysics (Ken holds a PhD in that subject).

Where does he find the time? Discipline. He writes every day. He's at his desk at seven in the morning. He recently lost his father and even on the day of the funeral, he was at his desk at seven for the first couple of hours. Disrespect? No! Respect. As Ken puts it, his father would have expected no less from him. That's what separates those who write from those who talk about writing. Discipline and plain, consistent hard work.

There, I am out of breath and I haven't even introduced Ken Bruen, the man, to you. A subject more fascinating than the characters who populate his novels. Another time, I'm afraid.

Now let's take a look at his latest book. The Killing of the Tinkers is two hundred and fifty-three pages of the best dialogue I have ever read. Believable, in-your-face, and real; you are there, sitting across the table, eavesdropping at the next bar stool. It leaps off every page and makes you part of Jack Taylor's world. The reviews of Ken's work tend to focus on the dark side. But that's not all that captured me. I was grabbed from the first sentence of the first page by the self-destructive soul of Jack Taylor; a soul that could only be cauterized by alcohol and cocaine. Yes, that's dark. But it's too narrow an assessment. If you have a dark side (and how many of us have, if we're honest) you will find a memory or two in the lost evenings and anguished mornings of Jack Taylor. But where there is dark, there must also be light. And that light is there, perhaps dim at times, but it's there. It's there in the women who love him, in the people who still trust him, in the friends who care for him, in himself too: his ability to pick himself up again, his sense of justice, his attempts to find and punish the evil ones. There's the humour too, always there, black humour maybe, but it's the fabric that saves Jack Taylor and the people who populate Ken Bruen's Galway from absolute despair. Yes, Jack Taylor finds his anaesthetic in cocaine and alcohol. But he also finds it in books. It seems at times that he could just as easily be tempted into Charlie Byrne's as into his local pub. If you love to read (and I suspect you wouldn't be reading this unless you do) you'll be able to 'stack' Jack Taylor's selections on your own book shelves as you get lost in this dark trek through the netherworld of Galway.

But you also get to travel the streets and meet the people of the real Galway, from Forster Street to Hidden Valley, from Vinny in Charlie Byrnes to Declan in Zhivago's. Maybe Ken Bruen is doing for Galway in The Killing of the Tinkers what Joyce did for Dublin in Ulysses: giving us a map of a Galway that is rapidly disappearing under the paws of the Celtic Tiger.

That's it. Buy the book, tell your friends, buy some more………………………….

And next time you see me absorbed, intoxicated, in the shelves of your favourite bookstore in Galway, you know I'll be sampling the sources of my drugs. …….Jack Higgins, James Patterson, Jeffery Deaver, Ken Follett, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly and Ken Bruen……..

A final update on the world created by Ken Bruen ………….

The Guards, Ken's first Jack Taylor novel was published by Brandon last year and has been optioned for film rights by De Facto Films of Derry. His novel Her Last Call to Louis Mac Niece (1997) is currently in production for Pilgrim Pictures. The Guards and The Killing of the Tinkers, also published by Brandon, have been signed up for publication in the US by St Martin's Press and, in Australia, by Duffy and Snellgrove. An Albanian edition of The Guards will be published next year.

Ken is the author of thirteen novels but The Guards is the first in which US, Australian or Albanian rights have been sold. His "White Trilogy" books have been bought by Channel 4 in the UK. Ken's latest book in this series, BLITZ, has just been published and The Irish Times has this to say: "A soul-mate of Jim Thompson's, or maybe of James M Cain's, he has a cast of characters which rates high on the deadbeat scale". Ken was nominated for the 2004 Edgar Award, the 2004 Barry Award, and the 2004 SHAMUS Award for The Guards. He won the 2004 SHAMUS AWARD!

ABOUT PAT MULLAN

Pat Mullan was born in Ireland and has lived in England, Canada and the USA. He spent two years with the US Army in Japan and Korea. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and the State University of New York. Formerly a banker, he now lives in Connemara, in the west of Ireland. His novel, The CIRCLE of SODOM, is available on all the on-line stores. It was nominated as the Reader's Choice Award for Best First Novel and Best Suspense Thriller at this year's (2005) LOVE IS MURDER Conference in Chicago. His second novel, BLOOD RED SQUARE, will be published in 2005 by LBF Books. His story Tribunal of Death will appear in 2005 in Akashic Books' DUBLIN NOIR, edited by Ken Bruen. It is part of TRIBUNAL, his current novel in progress; set mainly in Ireland, it will introduce Ed Burke. He is also working on a science fiction novel, tentatively titled SLING-SHOTS. His science fiction short, The FACSIMILE, will also be published this year. His poetry collection, CHILDHOOD HILLS, is also available on-line and he is completing a second collection, AWAKENING.