The Magdalen Martyrs [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

With such a diagnosis, who couldn't (at least if you're reading these reviews) connect with Jack Taylor? The third in the series finds Bruen a bit more relaxed, if you can say that about a man creating not only the drug-addled (see novel #2) but back to booze (novel #1) protagonist out on another mission in which again packets of cash come his way almost serendipitously to allow him to fund his ramshackle and lackadaisacal vocation. I'm pleased to find only two errors this time out. The first would likely be lost to a non-Irish reader: Mount Melleray gets misspelled--I remember Joyce's characters discussing it as a dry-out facility, and was surprised this wasn't added to Jack's reverie on the site. The second only a Galwegian might catch: Scoil "Fhursa" gets garbled into the phonetically proper but orthographically flawed "Ursa," unless it's a Latin-Gaelic pun.

As for the plot, why does Harriet Klausner keep calling these "British" noir? It's again a Galway story, and added to the characters this time out is an appealing foil, the ban garda (policewoman) Brid Nic an Iomaire, who Jack takes down a peg by calling her by the ugly anglicized rendering of her surname, "Ridge." Cliched set-ups: this time Jack falling in bed at every chance with the mum of his latest employer--again balance against raw accounts of being down and out, chemically speaking.

Yuppified, tourist-trampled, and "refugee"-ridden old/new Galway again provides the atmosphere, at turns oppressive and cleansing. Few natives of the city survive. The "drinking school" at Eyre Square grows. Characters manage to cover long swathes of the admittedly compact city center seemingly instantly, but like any writer I suppose Bruen cuts to the chase when necessary. Miss Bailey, the sentry, and Supt. Clancy endure. I miss Keegan, but Brendan and Bill return again, and their predicaments impel much of the plot. Cathy seems to be fading away, and Jeff continues as an unevenly drawn confessor figure. Why Jack hates his mum so remains for me too ambiguous, but two earlier relationships left disappointingly vague in "The Killing" get a bit of welcome clarification, however briefly, as Jack recalls Kiki and Laura in a moment of self-incrimination to account for his past treatment of these two former loves.

While it's hard to believe that even a doped-up Jack would choose both the lacerating honesty of Thomas Merton and the hokey claptrap of Khalil Gibran for comfort, the allusions continue, mostly not for no apparent reason! I did find this time around the vignettes of the Magdalen victims moving and a welcome change from the totally first-person style of Bruen's two earlier Taylor books. They avoid sentimentality and preachiness, while still conveying the horror perpetrated upon those women.

The Church comes in for a hard time in this work, at least from the Franciscans who keep circling Jack, and of course Fr. Malachy, but the entry of the doppelgangers Fr. Tom and Danny Flynn represent an appealingly disorienting couple of unsettling interlocuters. There's less violence in this installment, more misery, but also the pace is a bit more controlled, and this book was easier than "Guards" to read--Bruen getting more comfortable in Jack's skin--and the events better unfolded than "The Killing."

Jack Taylor is a man unhappy in his own skin. He hates sobriety and he hates his drug and alcohol addictions. Not so much the addictions themselves but the mornings after or the days later after another mind wrecking binge is over. His thin control over the addictions is shaky from the very beginning of this dark read currently available in hardback. What keeps him sane and barely in control is his love for books and his library that he keeps with him when circumstances force him to move from place to place. They have once more made the journey with him as he is back in Bailey's Hotel and hating the holiday season because of the gloomy weather as well as what it represents. He is also very unhappy that Bill Cassell has found him and is calling in his marker. Cassell certainly isn't a friend and the fact that Jack owes him a debt, which forces him to do whatever Cassell wants, sours his mood completely.

On the face of it, it doesn't seem so bad after all as Cassell just wants him to find somebody. He wants Jack Taylor to find a woman that helped Cassell's mother escape the Magdalen laundry years ago. The Magdalen was a horrible place for unwed mothers run by the church in Ireland where appalling abuse was inflicted on the unfortunate young women sent there. The woman's name was Rita Monroe and if Jack does not find her, living or dead, Cassell will punish him severely.

Jack begins his assigned task and before long gets a very physical reminder from Cassell and his minions to work faster. And while, from one point of view the reminder works, on another level it unleashes forces within Jack that neither he nor Cassell can control. Not only does the terror of what was done to him push Jack to the edge of his sanity, his addiction demons are once more awakened and he works the case with a new vengeance-both on himself as well as those who stand in the way.

With frequent allusions by name as well as content to other authors and their novels, which range across a wide spectrum, the novel becomes part mystery read and almost part suggested reading list. As the pages pass, the author spins a darkly disturbing and mesmerizing tale of one man's struggle to remain sane and in some semblance of control while being powerless to stay sober. Jack's neuroses, which are many, quickly become the readers own as his world comes alive on the printed page. The tale is told in fragments and flashbacks in a choppy style overlaying a deep subtext of the pain within and the battle against it. The result is a jolting and intense experience that gives the reader something far different than from most books in the genre.

This entire review previously appeared online at the mystery morgue.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2005

"The girl was on her knees, polishing the floor. She was dressed in shapeless faded overalls. A spotless white apron bore witness to the laundry she was confined to." So begins Ken Bruen's third installment in the life of his alcoholic, reading, ex-police officer, a former member of the Guards, kicked out of course for excessive drinking. Bruen takes on the Catholic Church here and specifically the awful stain on it, what has become known as the Magdalen Martyrs where unwed mothers were kept literally as prisoners and were forced to do manual labor-- if they were lucky. Some did not survive.

Taylor is hired by Bill Cassell to find one Rita Monroe whom he describes as someone who helped his own mother escape from the awful Magdalen laundry. As usual, Taylor both drinks and reads anything-- from Yeats to Kafka to Khalil Gibran to Robin Cook-- and for one reason or another usually steps on his own feet in trying to carry out whatever his current mission is. Cathy and Jeff make return appearances as does Brendan Flood; the obnoxious Father Malachy; Jack's hated mother who has suffered a stroke; and one breath of fresh air, his landlady Ms. Bailey, the most decent of people.

In much the way Chuck Palahniuk has made the underbelly of Portland, Oregon his own, Bruen makes Galway his town although I'm not sure I want to visit all the places he would take me. Taylor-- as we expect-- sort of falls into figuring out what is going on, and we have the now obligatory surprise ending.

THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS is another Bruen grim tale that will hold you in its spell.