Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Galway private eye Jack Taylor awakens from an 18-month coma to a raging pandemic, two serial felons, and a most unexpected savior. Jack doesn’t know the man who calls himself Raftery, but the former U.S. Marine, who’s taken time out from his podcast, Galway Confidential, to visit Jack every day since rescuing him from a knife-wielding attacker, is at his side when he comes around. The rest of their city isn’t doing so well. A pair of sadistic teenagers are dousing the city’s plentiful street people with lighter fluid and setting them on fire, and some unrelated party has been beating local nuns badly enough to send them to the hospital and seems likely to send the next round of victims to the morgue. Geary, an old friend of Jack’s who lives on the streets, tries to hire him to investigate the attacks on all those other homeless souls, but then he becomes the next victim. And ex-nun Sheila Winston, who guilts Jack into investigating all those wounded religious, ends up strangled with her own rosary. As usual with Bruen, the mystery is mainly an excuse for an unblinkered tour of the local lowlifes, its focus strategically blurred by shots of Jameson whiskey and throwaway apothegms referencing its title (e.g., “Keeping something confidential in Galway means you only tell two people instead of three”). And they’re well worth touring, especially when they’re set against the headline developments in world affairs that occasionally penetrate Jack’s haze. The raffish hero’s world feels like an unusually sordid theme park attraction. Just be sure to wipe your hands when you exit. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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At the start of the satisfyingly complex 17th entry in Bruen’s Jack Taylor series, the Irish PI has just awakened from a two-year coma caused by the climactic assault in Galway Epiphany. As Jack tries to adjust to the impact Covid-19 has had on daily life in Galway while he was comatose, two major cases are thrust into his lap. First, he’s asked to find the perpetrator behind a series of savage physical attacks on two local nuns. Then a man living on the streets asks Jack to stop two young thugs who have been setting fire to homeless people at night. Though he’s initially hesitant to take on the jobs, the sheer viciousness of the acts pricks at Jack’s conscience, and he agrees. His investigations are soon hampered by the intrusion of a ruthless vigilante group and a self-appointed friend who runs a local crime podcast and claims to have saved Jack’s life on the night of his assault. All the usual elements of a Jack Taylor novel—terse prose, muscular action, and plenty of Jameson—are on offer in spades, and though the conclusion is less bone-crunching than usual, it tees up the next entry nicely. This will more than satisfy series fans. Agent: Lukas Ortiz, Philip G. Spitzer Literary. (Mar.)