PRIEST
Ken Bruen
St. Martin's Minotaur
Mystery
ISBN-10: 0312341407
ISBN-13: 9780312341404

Jack Taylor has recently emerged from the asylum, after his friends' daughter died while under his watch. Still clinging to Item 8234, his symbol of defiance from a wrecked career as an Irish policeman, he rejoins life in his hometown.

Jack has good intentions --- he really does --- but his bad attitude keeps getting in the way. Fortunately, he doesn't always say what he thinks. Not always, just often. Too often, probably. Sometimes, though, his first thought is what he should go with. He just doesn't. If you can say nothing else about him, you have to admit that Jack is honest. Still his own worst enemy, he also has a few others pursuing him in PRIEST, although he is making strides --- slow, short strides --- toward improving his life.

A few good things happen to him, although mostly in the midst of several bad things. Still a bit disoriented from his stay in the "madhouse," he barely has time to ponder his next move when Ban Garda Ridge --- with whom he has a frustrating and tenuous friendship --- mentions the dead priest, Father Joyce. Not wanting to hear the details, he nonetheless does. It is not a pretty story.

"Especially in the current climate…you hear about priests now, it ain't going to be good, it's not going to be a heart-warming tale about some poor dedicated soul who spent fifty years among some remote tribe and then they ate him. No, it's going to be bad, and scandalous."

Of course, it was bad and scandalous. The victim, if we can call him that, was one of the priests who amused himself with altar boys. Those altar boys did not grow up happy and well adjusted. Their lives were shattered, and what little success they achieved in the world came at great cost. Did one of them snap after all these years, or did the priest have other enemies? Jack looks into it initially because he is asked to, but eventually he finds that he can't leave it be, even when some rogue Garda types attempt to warn him off.

While trying to find his way in post-loonybin Galway, an eager young lad named Cody hooks up with Jack, following Jack like a stray puppy. He says he wants to be partners and has always admired Jack, his role model. Jack indulges Cody as a gunslinger indulges a kid with a peashooter. Cody amuses, and even flatters, Jack, who surprises himself by liking the fellow. 

Well, things start to go pretty well for Jack, but you know that can't last. And it doesn't. How he's going to pull himself out of the depths of despair after this latest disaster is anybody's guess, but my money is on Ken Bruen to bring Jack back for yet another case. At least, I sure hope he does. The Jack Taylor novels must have a cult following by now.

   --- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

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