Ken Bruen

To be honest, I'd read Ken Bruen's to do list, shopping list, just about anything he writes. (I live with this odd fantasy that his to do list would be terse, pointed, poignant, unapologetic, tense and yet hilarious... but I don't get out much and my mind tends to wander into odd places).

As is also normal with any Ken Bruen book LONDON BOULEVARD is not for the squeamish. Unapologetic, brutal, violent and very in your face, it is as always, equally touching and somehow hamfistedly gentle. Mitch, fresh out of prison, has a soft side, particularly when it comes to his sister Briony, a fragile creature. Whilst he comes out of jail to an apartment, creature comforts and the small complication of a job with a local loan sharking outfit, Mitch prefers to look after himself. He branches out into the role of handyman to the glorious, Norma Desmond copycat Lillian Palmer. Hence LONDON BOULEVARD is also not a book for the prudish - as sex with elderly, slightly bats actresses is one thing; but to be honest the close attention that butler, caretaker, bodyguard and more, Jordan, pays to his mistress's every need was ... weird from the start.

Life for Mitch meanwhile gets more complicated as his sister's desperation, betrayal, the desire for revenge and the madness of just about everybody around him means that he is caught between a rock and a very very hard place. LONDON BOULEVARD is another classic Ken Bruen novel - sharp, brutal, funny, touching, discomforting - delivered at break neck pace, not guilty of the use of an unnecessary word.

When your favourite authors start dying even the most reasonable reader should be forgiven for becoming a nervous, obsessed, idiot hoarder of books that can, after all, be re-read should the unthinkable eventuate.  Despite an overwhelming desire to continue this hoarding behaviour, eventually the yearning for books like CALIBRE becomes too strong and, as a result, I'm no longer hoarding CALIBRE.  (DISCLAIMER:  I have no information whatsoever with regard to Mr Bruen's state of health... it's just that he's a favourite author and there's always the chance that any one of my favourite authors could beat me out the door....)

I'm not 100% sure what called me to this book over the last few days, but I found myself inexplicably incapable of looking past it when scanning the shelves for a little something to fill in a hot weekend.  Which plan failed dismally as I read it in a single setting.  Not because the book is 192 pages long, because it was so extremely, gloriously readable.

Of course we're talking Bruen here, so it's rapid-fire dialogue, recited by unconventional characters, with a healthy disdain for the rules or much in the way of propriety.  There's also the most marvellous dark, dry humour - personally I thought Sergeant Brant's method for becoming the British equivalent of author Ed McBain had a weird sort of merit, although I doubt his colleague, who was being set up for a systematic fleecing of his ability, would agree....

CALIBRE, as with all of Bruen's novels, is not for everyone.  We're not talking straight-forward police procedurals here, nor are we necessarily talking much in the way of complicated plots.  What we are talking is a sense of noir, of the dark side, of black humour and somehow, disconcertingly so in some places, realism.  Favourite author or not favourite author I'm going to have to snap out of hoard mode and get back into reading (and re-reading) all of Bruen's books.

Where Do I Begin?

Ken Bruen writes in his own form of poetry.

The words pull no punches.

His characters make no apologies.

They will do as the damn well please and sometimes there are simply not enough good guys to go around.

You think.

It's hard to tell who is a good guy and who isn't.

ONCE WERE COPS isn't going to be a novel for everyone.

It's hard, bad, dark, violent, unapologetic, difficult and complex.

There are no winners and there are lots of losers.

Don't read it if you want a happy ending (or a neatly tied off resolution for that matter).

Do read it if you like a walk on the dark side.

Do read it if you're looking for something outside the box.