Adrian
15th May 2007, 08:31 AM
This is a recent standalone novel by Ken Bruen and is a take on American noir. It grieves me to say it but it's far from his best book, and for the first third it's pretty slow and little aimless, things I'd never thought I'd ever say about one of his.
There's some good skipping back and forward in time and good use of locations ranging from Galway, New York, Tucson, Vegas and Dublin. And it does improve in the middle third when the hero, Stephen Blake, Irish but ex-British army, bank robber and absconder arrives in NY.
But cynical Adrian says it looks like it was written to order for the publishing company to push in the States. Now that shouldn't matter as he's not had any great success in the UK and Ireland probably isn't the biggest market to target, but putting a glossary of Gaelic words at the front and changing his trademark prose style make me wonder. I think I saw a few grammatical and typographic errors too.
This useful synopsis from Bruen's page on the book at his site (http://www.kenbruen.com/american.php)
At the start of Bruen's dark tribute to the Irish fascination with the American dream, Stephen Blake is on the run after a bank heist, hoping to disappear in the desert near Tucson. He has the money, and his girlfriend, Siobhan, knows how to launder it. All he has to do is change his accent, his skin and pass as American. But John A. Stapleton, hit man for the IRA, wants more than his share of the swag, and the psychotic Dade, obsessively devoted to the music of Tammy Wynette, is wandering the Southwest like a slaughter wagon. Noir master Bruen (The Guards) effortlessly moves his story line back and forth in time, all his trademark pop culture references in place, the banshee of existential agony wailing loud.
ETA: Read the opening chapter here (http://www.mississippireview.com/2005/Vol11No1-Jan05/1101-010805-bruen.html)
There's some good skipping back and forward in time and good use of locations ranging from Galway, New York, Tucson, Vegas and Dublin. And it does improve in the middle third when the hero, Stephen Blake, Irish but ex-British army, bank robber and absconder arrives in NY.
But cynical Adrian says it looks like it was written to order for the publishing company to push in the States. Now that shouldn't matter as he's not had any great success in the UK and Ireland probably isn't the biggest market to target, but putting a glossary of Gaelic words at the front and changing his trademark prose style make me wonder. I think I saw a few grammatical and typographic errors too.
This useful synopsis from Bruen's page on the book at his site (http://www.kenbruen.com/american.php)
At the start of Bruen's dark tribute to the Irish fascination with the American dream, Stephen Blake is on the run after a bank heist, hoping to disappear in the desert near Tucson. He has the money, and his girlfriend, Siobhan, knows how to launder it. All he has to do is change his accent, his skin and pass as American. But John A. Stapleton, hit man for the IRA, wants more than his share of the swag, and the psychotic Dade, obsessively devoted to the music of Tammy Wynette, is wandering the Southwest like a slaughter wagon. Noir master Bruen (The Guards) effortlessly moves his story line back and forth in time, all his trademark pop culture references in place, the banshee of existential agony wailing loud.
ETA: Read the opening chapter here (http://www.mississippireview.com/2005/Vol11No1-Jan05/1101-010805-bruen.html)