Critical Mick

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The Killing of the Tinkers
by Ken Bruen
Brandon Books, 2009

Ask Mr. Critic Guy

Q. Forsooth- didn't Ken Bruen's second Jack Taylor novel, The Killing of the Tinkers, come out years ago?

A. Ken Bruen uses words far fresher and more vivid than "forsooth," so his books remain popular with new audiences even a decade later.

Q. What's this new decade called-? A. The Maxies. Look at the Roman numerals: MMX. It will be the classical era of Irish Crime Fiction. Q. Which is the correct way to pronounce 2010? A. Two Thousand and Ken. With releases of new novels and several films, this will be Ken Bruen's year. Brandon Books are starting it off in good form with new editions of Bruen's first two Jack Taylor novels, The Guards (originally published by Brandon in 2001) and The Killing of the Tinkers (2002). Q. What's a Tinker? A little less than a Tinkest-? (snort!) A. Ireland's most disparaged minority. Rather than settling down in one place, a small portion of the population travels around in mobile homes and shares their own traditions. Brad Pitt's character in Snatch was a Traveller. Q. Was Brad Pitt's portrayal accurate? That guy was pretty tough. A. Consult Irish crime reporter Eamon Dillon's first book, The Outsiders: Exposing the Secretive World of Ireland's Travellers. Mr. Language Guy has lived near a couple of Halting Sites for years and found them to be quiet enough neighbors. Jack Taylor, Bruen's tough-guy private dick spends time with the Traveller community and never feels uncomfortable or out of place.

Read Mick's April 2006 review of The Guards, the novel in which Ken Bruen introduced Jack Taylor.     Ken Bruen edited Dublin Noir, a collection of nineteen crime fic short stories set in Ireland.

Q. So some guy is killing the Travellers in Galway?

A. Yep. Chopping their hands off too.

Q. Jack has to find out who it is and bring them to justice?

A. That's how most private eye books work, but Ken Bruen does not write like anyone else. Plot is in last place when it comes to driving this story, far behind scene, character, and turn of phrase, all polished sharp & shiny as scalpels. Jack Taylor spends most of his time reading, drinking, and either delivering or receiving a beating. There's a love interest, hardboiled dialogue, brutality and observations quoted at length from Raymond Chandler, Samuel Beckett and Derek Raymond. There are so many lit references within that The Killing of the Tinkers contains a joke about libraries.

Q. What kind of fast-paced action book is that?

A. The Ken Bruen sort. The Killing of the Tinkers pushes what the genre is and does. It accomplishes this with fantastic prose, and in two hundred and fifty fast pages.

Q. I only read McBain. Come on, just tell me, should I read The Killing of the Tinkers or not?

This whole Mr. Critic Guy thing is just ripping off Dave Barry's Mr Language Guy, right?

Mr. Critic Guy says: Read The Killing of the Tinkers. Guaranteed: no crime fiction fan will be bored.

It is, yes

The Killing of the Tinkers was also reviewed by Kate Ayers of bookreporter.com fame.

In the most vivid review ever written, Martin Kich compared this Ken Bruen novel to jar after jar of sterile maggots!

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2010 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 31 January, 2010.