Green Hell by Ken Bruen

Published by Mysterious Press on July 7, 2015

I'm a fan of Ken Bruen's no-frills writing style, with its frequent references to pop culture, its creative use of foul language, and its striking visual arrangement of words on the page. Some pages consist of quotations from excellent crime novels and American television shows, broken into lines that reveal their poetry. Bruen takes on critics who complain that his books are for "people who don't read" by having a bartender opine, "How [censored] insulting is that to readers?"

Bruen knows that good writing can be found in movies and television shows and popular crime novels, not just in Nobel Prize winning fiction. Bruen's own crime fiction is a prime example. Descriptions of people and places are vivid, pointed, and mercifully short. Dialog is snappy. (My favorite snatch of dialog in Green Hell is this:

"I have a Kindle."
"And may God forgive you.")

The bartender suggests that the pop culture references "ground the story in stuff I know" but there's really no need for Bruen to defend himself. The quotations and lists are necessary amusements. They balance the pervasive darkness to which his characters are exposed, the unfairness that they were born to endure.

In Green Hell, an American named Boru Kennedy puts aside his dissertation on Beckett to write about Jack Taylor, the man who saved him from young thugs who were about to "kick the [censored] be-Jaysus out of this bollix." Taylor is well known to Bruen's fans as the former Guard who tries to steer his way through a crime-filled Galway that he typically perceives through an alcoholic and pill induced haze. Kennedy, fascinated with Taylor's combination of roguish charm and full throttle violence, decides to interview the people who know Taylor best, none of whom hold him in high regard. A former colleague who describes Taylor as "a spit in the Face" once thought that the light shone stronger in Taylor than the darkness. That person now thinks that Taylor has embraced the ugliness and brutality of life. Others are less kind.

Part I, which covers more than the first half of Green Hell, is Boru's take on Jack. In Part II ("Jack's Back"), Jack is again the narrative voice. But since the voice is always Bruen's, the change is one of perspective rather than style. Taylor's perspective is bleak. That the story takes place at Christmas only contributes to Taylor's grim mood. Part II also introduces a character who is even more messed up than is normal for the series. I suspect she will resurface in later installments.

Apart from its biographical content -- the latest installment in the story of Jack -- a plot occasionally surfaces, having to do with a woman Boru starts dating and an academic who physically abuses his female students. The plot takes a sharp turn and finally comes into focus in Part II. It soon becomes clear why the story's perspective has changed.

Green Hell didn't pick me up and throw me down a flight of stairs like some of Bruen's novels, although it delivered Bruen's characteristic knockout punch at the end. This is a worthy installment in Jack Taylor's life. The greatest joy in reading these novels lies in knowing (knock on wood) that my life will never be as bad as Jack's.

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