Jason Starr/Ken Bruen

I think it was accentmonkey.

She's probably still recovering from the Rock Hardy bender.

a thread that died too early.

interested in bruen alone as well as the bruen/starr collaborations -- what do you think about their HCC issues?
have you read any ken bruen books abt Jack Taylor or any of his stand-alone novels?
recommendations?

I like Ken Bruen. I liked the first Hard Case Crime collaboration. I don't have much to say about it. It's that kind of desperate drunken fucking up kind of ugly crime novel. I like it. Literary.

is Jack Taylor like the Irish Matt Scudder? (boozer/ex-boozer, former cop, thinks a lot about the sadness and futility of life.)

also, holy shit, Zachary Taylor was a president of the united states.

hey did you know there's a jack taylor series starring iain "ser jorah mormont" glen? it's on netflix streaming.

'the guards' is a good novel, nice terse vicious ending

haha, al_leong, that's what made me revive this thread. i watched the first one last night, it was okay! i like that style of BBC tv murder mystery movie.

i've also been interested in starr/bruen for a while, cuz i am a hard case crime fanboy..

FOYLE'S WAR

for bbc thrillas

haven't seen that one yet. i wanted to watch the Midsomer Murders next maybe... i also haven't finished Cracker or the o.g. prime suspect.

there is another ken bruen adaptation starring STATHAM, based on one of his brant/roberts novels, called 'blitz'. also starring aidan "petyr baelish" gillen as a particularly scuzzy serial killer.

on netflix?
are there any bruen novels you'd recommend particularly, aside from The Guards.

actually no but only because i haven't read any others : /

'blitz' is on streaming. definitely a case of trying to fit a statham sized piece into a character actor hole but it's not bad. it gets some mileage out of being ultraviolent.

cool. thanks :D

just watched "Blitz."
Helen: "That movie was the worst."

I thought it was fine. I like action/cop movies. She was mad about the way it portrayed London, and that it was unrealistic. Whatevs.

I do wonder a bit abt Bruen and Block -- the end of the film, which I assume is the same as the end of the book, features the leads taking things into their own hands -- that's something Matt Scudder does quite often in the Lawrence Block novels.

reading Starr's "Tough Luck" - this is a bleak fucking novel.
Protagonist's home life = shit, work life = boring tedium/shit, social life = shit.

I do like it though. It's very character focused, on the struggle this dude Mickey has with his work/family/gambling habit, and the plot moves a bit slowly at first, but you really feel bad for this poor schmuck. He just wants to go to college, man.

thanks to JAMES REDD for hooking me up with this one, as well as whole box of books.

also, i thought i posted abt it on this thread but it must have been elsewhere -- i read and enjoyed "Bust" by Bruen/Starr. At first I was put off by the sheer repulsiveness of all the characters but the twisty plotting drew me in and kept me focused. I enjoyed it. Action packed.

xpost to my self, back to "Tough Luck" -- it's really weird to hear the Publishers Weekly reviewer call the interactions between Mickey and his friends "hilarious." They're not funny at all! They pick on him, call him faggot, talk shit about his fish smell (he works at a fish market.) and basically just abuse the fuck out of him. And he hates it! It's not good natured witty repartee, it's just bullies beating verbally beating him down. It's a drag -- I dealt with a lot of bullshit like that in school and it sucked, so maybe I'm taking it more seriously than it's meant, but jesus.

finished Tough Luck -- holy shit what a dark book.

Still looking for copy of Hard Feelings to give you.

Think I said it on another thread but my Jason Starr kick kind of ended when I went to a reading at The Mysterious Bookshop and he just kept grinning on the verge of laughter the whole time.

haha, that's so weird... maybe he was just really stoked?

Hope so.

Actually I was thinking maybe it was the equivalent of a nervous giggle.

I've been going back and filling in some holes in my Bruen reading.

This week, his first - Rilke On Black (has its moments but inessential - Her Last Call From Louis Macneice is better and mines similar territorty) and a recent one -- Callous. Both enjoyable. Callous has a psychopath obsessed with (wait for it...) Maria Callas (grim lol here tbh.) it reminds me of the fella in American Skin who was obsessed w Tammy Wynette. Anyway if you like his stuff you know, you'll like em. I think the biggest fault w Rilke on Black is the awkward attempt at writing black vernacular but... in other places it's really good.

Did you read his Jack Taylor series to the end?

I did not, that's actually my big blind spot for him. I've only read a couple of them. Read all the London Police Squad novels and most of the standalones.

I eventually got turned off by their misanthropy - I think it was something Ian said!- and so stopped reading.

XP yeah I feel like you mentioned something about that now that I remember. The books get increasingly surreal and the final scene in the last book seems to leave no room for more but maybe I'll be surprised. I don't blame anyone checking out of those books after a while, they get increasingly bleak as time goes on. It was all a bit much at certain points but I finished because they were very very fast reads. I keep meaning to check out his other ones but I've been very slow getting to them.

RIP Ken Bruen

That’s a real bummer. I was in Galway for several days this past summer and kept referencing those Jack Taylor novels in my mind, as I walked around the streets, ventured into pubs, and down alleyways.

Have a pint of the black and a shot of the jay?

There's a brand new/final Taylor novel, I gotta go down to the mystery bookstore and pick it up sometime soon.

Aye xp

Yeah, I think I’m going to have to get that one asap, I was saying on the rolling obituary thread that I hoped maybe he pounded out another one that’ll show up down the road, and that I hope the series wraps up on a good note. Depends on whether or not this was something he saw coming or not, I suppose.

I’m reading the first one now due to the rolling obits convo