Ken Bruen: The Magdalen Martyrs (USA 2006)

From the Publisher:
Jack Taylor is walking the delicate edge of a sobriety he doesn't trust when his phone rings. He's in debt to a Galway tough named Bill Cassell, what the locals call a "hard man." Bill did Jack a big favor a while back; the trouble is, he never lets a favor go unreturned.

Jack is amazed when Cassell simply asks him to track down a woman, now either dead or very old, who long ago helped his mother escape from the notorious Magdalen laundry, where young wayward girls were imprisoned and abused. Jack doesn't like the odds of finding the woman, but counts himself lucky that the task is at least on the right side of the law.

Until he spends a few days spinning his wheels and is dragged in front of Cassell for a quick reminder of his priorites. Bill's goons do a little spinning of their own, playing a game of Russian roulette a little too close to the back of Jack's head. It's only blind luck and the mercy of a god he no longer trusts that land Jack back on the street rather than face down in a cellar with a bullet in his skull. He's got one chance to stay alive: find this woman.

Unfortunately, he can't escape his own curiosity, and an unnerving hunch quickly turns into a solid fact: just who Jack's looking for, and why, aren't nearly what they seem.

The Magdalen Martyrs, the third Galway-set novel by Edgar, Barry, and Macavity finalist and Shamus Award-winner Ken Bruen, is a gripping, dazzling story that takes the Jack Taylor series to explosive new heights of suspense.

Ken Bruen: The Magdalen Martyrs. A Novel. St. Martin's Minotaur, ISBN: 0312353510 (February, 2006), 274 p., $14.99.

Ken Bruen: The Magdalen Martyrs (USA 2005)

From the Publisher:
Jack Taylor is walking the delicate edge of a sobriety he doesn't trust when his phone rings. He's in debt to a Galway tough named Bill Cassell, what the locals call a "hard man." Bill did Jack a big favor a while back; the trouble is, he never lets a favor go unreturned.

Jack is amazed when Cassell simply asks him to track down a woman, now either dead or very old, who long ago helped his mother escape from the notorious Magdalen laundry, where young wayward girls were imprisoned and abused. Jack doesn't like the odds of finding the woman, but counts himself lucky that the task is at least on the right side of the law.

Until he spends a few days spinning his wheels and is dragged in front of Cassell for a quick reminder of his priorites. Bill's goons do a little spinning of their own, playing a game of Russian roulette a little too close to the back of Jack's head. It's only blind luck and the mercy of a god he no longer trusts that land Jack back on the street rather than face down in a cellar with a bullet in his skull. He's got one chance to stay alive: find this woman.

Unfortunately, he can't escape his own curiosity, and an unnerving hunch quickly turns into a solid fact: just who Jack's looking for, and why, aren't nearly what they seem.

The Magdalen Martyrs, the third Galway-set novel by Edgar, Barry, and Macavity finalist and Shamus Award-winner Ken Bruen, is a gripping, dazzling story that takes the Jack Taylor series to explosive new heights of suspense.

Ken Bruen: The Magdalen Martyrs. A Novel. St. Martin's Minotaur, ISBN: 0312316453 (March, 2005), 274 p., $22.95.

Ken Bruen: The Magdalen Martyrs (UK 2003)

From the Publisher:
THE BREAKTHROUGH SERIES BY THE IRISH MASTER OF NOIR
"Collectively, the Jack Taylor novels are Bruen's masterwork." This Week

"Bleak, unsettling and unmistakably original, Bruen seems to be alone in writing entertaining Irish noir." Time Out

"Irish writer Ken Bruen is the finest purveyor of intelligent Brit-noir." The Big Issue

Ken Bruen was a finalist for the Edgar, Barry, and Macavity Awards, and the Private Eye Writers of America presented him with the Shamus Award for the Best Novel of 2003 for The Guards, the book that introduced Jack Taylor. Ken received the best series award in February 2007 for the Jack Taylor novels from The Crime Writers Association of America. The Dramatist was nominated in March 2007 for a Gumshoe Award for the BEST EUROPEAN CRIME NOVEL of 2006.

Ken Bruen: The Magdalen Martyrs. A Jack Taylor Novel. Brandon, ISBN: 0863223028 (January, 2003), 308 p., £7.99.