Ken Bruen and Jason Starr have again teamed up in this third over-the-top homage to pulp.  I’ve read the first of this series Bust but not the second Slide.  It doesn’t seem to matter much, although this one is funnier and the collaboration between the two seems more seamless, I think, than the first.  The Max follows the saga of oblivious megalomaniac Max Fisher and his sometime-girlfriend Angela Petrakos as his drug trafficking and her homicidal taste in men catch up with them.  Max finds himself greeting his hulking new roommate, Rufus, the Crips, and the Aryan Botherhood at Attica, while Angie finds herself confined to a Greek prison on Lesbos.  Although they both eventually escape these confines, it is harder to run from their character.  Added to the mix this time is failed mystery author turned true-crime writer Paula Segal who fantasizes over her lust for Laura Lippman while racing to write Max’s sordid story.  Angela, meanwhile, finds herself enamoured of  sleazoid Brit Sebastian, apparently a dead ringer for Lee Child.  There are more in-jokes and allusions than I understand, but these two characters are comic masterpieces as they hatch their plots and drink and drive across the continent.   Great fun, but probably not for polite company. 

Except, perhaps, for this little stinker.

Honestly, even in a genre where you’re not exactly expecting psychological insight and moral depth, this was unbelievably shallow.  Although some scenes, like a fire,  and a few of the minor characters, like the retired librarian and one of the lobstermen, were compelling, the main character was more one-dimensional than a cookie cutout, her family plastic even by Ozzie and Harriet standards, the plot thin, and important questions unresolved.  It did get better after the first 100 pages or so, but I’m not anxious to search out the rest of the extensive series, which makes even coastal Maine utterly unremarkable.  This gives “lite” reading a bad name.  Coal in Meier’s stocking.

In Taming the Alien, Brant ranges farther afield than usual, bonding memorably with a distant cousin, Pat de Brun, in Galway on his way to Shannion and hence to America.  Amazed by his warm reception, Brant manages to live up to his end of the human connection.  The Alien himself manages to do mayhem in San Francisco and get to Acapulco; Brant does follow him as far as New York City in order to retrieve half of a pair of thugs who have knifed him and killed a cop.  Bill from Rilke on Black surfaces again, as do a number of other characters from that novel and the first in this series. There are thugs galore.   In all, a very satisfying book.

A White Arrest, a novel that juggles introducing Brant and his South London police station; the story of “the Umpire,” insistent on killing England’s top cricket players; and a group of vigilantes who are hanging drug dealers is fun.  Brant is much more the sidekick of Inspector Roberts than in the later novels, and Roberts’ wife figures prominently. Bruen’s use of quotations and song lyrics predict the rest of the books, but the typography here is very effective.  Falls is a more important character than in the later books, and has her own Greek chorus and subplot.

The book is narrated by Nick, an ex-bouncer, who is something like Jack Taylor by the book’s end.  He’s the only character the least bit likable, and that’s not just a trick of the point of view, I think; he’s the underdog despite his size and violence.  His neighbor, Dex, is a bit of a wired sociopath, interesting and all over the place.  LIsa– talkative, pretty, black, hard, and the instigator for a poorly conceived kidnapping plot that is the book’s center– doesn’t really hold together as a character for me.   Nor does the Rilke-quoting kidnap victim.  (It probably didn’t help that I was reading Rilke but thinking Rimbaud for the first half of the book).

The first part of the book reads quickly as Bruen deftly paints his three characters.  The plot is unlikely in the extreme, rather like Bust with some brains in London, but there’s really little suspense and empathy for me, particularly in the middle of the book.   Inspector Brant himself does appear briefly in a late scene in the book, and London noir is a feature that appeals, but it is following Nick through the third (and last) part of the book that’s the most fun. 

As with other characters, Nick has an internal soundtrack of country, pop, and rock songs. Nick’s sometime girlfriend Bonny jumps off the page. There are riveting moments, but none that relate to the central plot, I think.

I’m not done with Bruen yet.  I’m on to London Boulevard, which I believe may be made into a movie, and the White Trilogy. I haven’t decided about the other Max and Angela books.

I do have to admit, if the truth be told, there were whole sentences I did nae understand.  Hamish (is he not from Transpotting?) is understandable, but some of the minor characters are hard.  And, of course, the setting is quite beautiful, but not quite the Sunderland sea loch I had expected. I have driven over some single tracks near where this was filmed, but I thank god I did not have to meet an oncoming vehicle on the Camel’s hump.  Fun.

Priest, just nominated for a 2008 Edgar award, is a wonderful book, with, I think, some differences from the others in the Jack Taylor series. 

The writing, still economical and fraught with emotion (often rage), has a different rhythm to it, with, it seems, longer sentences and  paragraphs and more description.  Some of the verbal ticks and tricks, like

the spaced lists,
the far-ranging quotes,
the extremely terse dialogue,

are somewhat less evident. At times Jack seems more reflective, softer.  Friendship seems more important to him, and he manages to really connect with several new characters– a desolute priest who appears only briefly; the young policewoman Ridge, who becomes more than a source of information to Jack: and, most importantly, Cody, an appealing twenty-something Jack begins to regard as a son. There is an elegiac tone to his thinking of some of his dead, particularly Mrs. Bailey and his father. He thanks some people; he cuts at least one character a break.  It’s only a sometime thing, but Jack does change.

Of course, this isn’t the Disney channel and Jack’s edge, his rage, and his violence are still there.  Some of that he seems to attribute to his current stage of sobriety.  Many of the themes in earlier novels are repeated– the betrayal of trust; the diminishment of the church; the Irish economic tiger which leaves Jack’s generation bereft and isolated; the importance of the written word; and the lure of dark side.  The guards remain a tantalizing regret and a menace to Jack.  The biggest problems unresolved at the end of The Dramatist, such as Jack’s future relationship with Jeff and Cathy, remain unresolved.  In fact, the last page of this book is the inciting incident of a next.  With Jack, just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. 

The story itself here involves a decapitated priest found in a confessional, a backlog of destroyed lives in his wake.  There’s also stalker, a sniper, and the usual suspects.  It’s a page-turner; not because of the murder, but what the events show us about Jack. His story remains compelling, however brooding and depressing the emotional landscape.