Book #29 Priest

Priest by Ken Bruen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Read back to back with Jack Taylor #4. I had to. Events at the end of The Dramatist left me reeling. Could anything worse have befallen Jack? Is Galway the kind of place to seek redemption? God, Jack - I really felt your despair. Your tortured soul. And the dark fiction continues in Priest.

Jack leaves hospital - the madhouse, the loony bin - where he has been for several months. Refuses further medication - "I felt my eyes retreat from the nine-yard stare, move away from the dead place." How did he finish up in an asylum? He doesn't remember. Collected by female Guard Ni Iomaire for his return to life in Galway even though the disfunction of their alliance continues, unabated. Does Jack have any friends left? Will he stay on the wagon? And as a new life beckons, Father Joyce is decapitated in a Galway confessional, shocking even the most hardened cynics and Jack is asked to find his killer, in the church rocked by scandal of the most disturbing nature.

Murder, conspiracy and a real danger for Jack - close and personal. Jack is a broken human-being. Past events continue to haunt his every waking hour as he continues to fight his alcoholism. But he does and he survives. Like it or not Jack you are a sensitive individual and I am concerned about what happens to you because Ken Bruen has written another gut-wrenching end to a fine book.

So, I am going to catch my breath before moving onto #6....

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