The Devil by Ken Bruen

Jack Taylor sees a new life in America as a possible answer to his demons. But immigration seems to have a problem with a little dustup a few years ago that landed him in jail for a brief stay and promptly sends him back to Galway. At the airport, he has a chance meeting with a guy in the bar. As he leaves, a flight attendant cautions him about his choice of drinking mates. Shortly afterwards, she is killed in a hit and run.

Once home, Jack returns to being that person people go to in order to get things fixed. A mother of a college kid is worried because her son hasn't been heard from in days and also missed her birthday. Jack learns from a friendly waitress at a student bar that the boy has come under the spell of a Mr. K. Soon, he learns that the son was murdered, gutted, and hung upside down on a cross in a cemetery. Then, the waitress is found gutted in her apartment in the company of a slaughtered and beheaded dog. Jack retreats into repeated pubs to hide in a shot of Jameson, a pint of Guinness, and Xanax . . . a lot of Xanax.

The mom of a Downs Syndrome girl hopes Jack could talk to the parents of 3 classmates who are bullying the girl. Problem is that the father is and importer . . . of drugs.

Taylor's old partner in the Guard, Ridge (now Sgt. Ridge), and her husband are having a party and where he again meets this charismatic stranger, Carl, who has a business proposition for Ridge as well as with Jack. As a favor, Jack asks Ridge to stop in on the parents of the bullying girls and ends up in the hospital for her efforts.

Jack tracks the dad's habits all the while he is starting to put 1 and 1 together about Carl/Mr. K. and coming up with Lucifer. We learn that most of the world's worst events could be traced to Mr. K.'s travels. Karl and Jack play a dangerous game of cat and mouse leading to the eventual confrontation that Jack thinks he and his 9mm have won, but later learns of some other mysterious deaths in London where the police want question someone who goes by simply K.

Bruen in one of the best selling of Irish authors and a number of his mysteries have been posted here. I like his style, almost poetic in it's presentation. I also like his mingling on current music, books, and authors (Taylor is a prolific reader. I've actually found a couple other authors to read based on mention in Bruen's series about Taylor). And there are a number of mentions of one of my favorite songs by the Stones - Sympathy for the Devil (one of the best bass lines in rock).

A number of Bruen fans posted on various review sites that they were disappointed that Bruen had ventured into the supernatural with this book, but I couldn't disagree more. I thought he perfectly united the mystery and supernatural aspects of the story. One other complaint of the fanboys was that the book just sort of ended. OK, if you like your books tied up in a nice neat bow, I'll give you that. But I suspect that we might see Mr. K. pop up in future twisted tales from one of my favorites of Ireland.

BTW, Jack does track down the drug running father of the bullying girls and in no uncertain terms, advises him to rein in his girls. A very satisfying chapter.

East Coast Don