In The Galway Silence starts with Jack Taylor in a very unlikely place. He’s happy and seems ready to settle down, and with some financial gains has a lot less to worry about than he has in the past.
Hell, he’s even drinking less.
Of course, Jack Taylor is a man destined to undermine his own success, and soon finds his world turned upside down with personal drama and professional problems. He’s hired to find out who killed the sons of a wealthy man. His girlfriend has a work trip to America, and instead of going with her he stays back and is tasked with entertaining her son. He botches the bonding attempt. He saves someone’s life, finds out things about his case that nobody really wants to know, learns his family is bigger than he thought, and his girlfriend’s son is abducted by a pedophile.
Oh, and he’s also hired to find out who’s poisoning some dogs.
All of these random things converge in unexpected ways. What won’t be a surprise to anyone who knows Jack Taylor is that the happiness he’d found was fleeing and he’s soon drinking more than he should be, booze still failing to fill the empty space in his heart.
This book felt very familiar, as though I’d read it or parts of it before. Perhaps that’s because Jack Taylor follows a similar arc in each book of the series. Readers are somehow lured back to see if this time, Jack will find some happiness, or at least peace. I suppose we all have to take his good moments when we can get them, because they are overshadowed by so much darkness.
As with all Bruen books, In The Galway Silence moves at a blistering pace, and has the usual acerbic wit and lyrical style of a Bruen novel and Bruen fans will find this novel delivers on what Bruen is best known for.
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