KEN BRUEN: R.I.P.

Very sad news. Ken Bruen, Irish mystery author and poet, died yesterday. Way too young. I met Ken several years ago, and we struck up what became a most valued friendship. He was truly a Renaissance man. We'd talk at conventions, and he was my guest at a literary salon at my tiny home where 50+ stalwart mystery fans squashed in to listen to him. He regaled us with stories in his Irish brogue. I loved his books. He had such a lyrical way with words. Ken was only 74. He will be missed. 

From the Connacht Tribune

Best known as the man behind the Jack Taylor crime series, he was the author of more than 50 books over a stellar career that made him one of the most prominent Irish crime writers of the last two decades.  

He was a past winner of the prestigious Shamus Award for best crime novel of the year; he also won the Macavity Award, the Barry Award, the Edgar Award – an award he was also shortlisted for earlier in his career. 

Born in Galway in 1951, he was educated at Gormanston College in Co Meath and later at Trinity College Dublin, where he earned a PhD in metaphysics. 

Ken Bruen spent 25 years traveling the world before he began writing in the mid-1990s. As an English teacher, Ken worked in South Africa, Japan, and South America, where he once spent four months in a Brazilian jail. 

He has two long-running series; one starring Jack Taylor, the disgraced former policeman – with acclaimed actor Iain Glen in the title role – and the other, the London police detective Inspector Brant.  

Nine of the Jack Taylor novels were turned into the eponymous television series, all shot around Galway city, with a host of local actors and crew members. Set in Galway, the acclaimed series relates the adventures and misadventures of a disgraced former police officer working as a haphazard private investigator whose life has been marred by alcoholism and drug abuse. 

His Brants and Roberts novel Blitz was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name, starring Jason Statham, Paddy Considine and Aidan Gillen. Indeed Ken Bruen’s work was tailormade for the big screen on many fronts. Bruen’s 2014 novel Merrick was adapted for TV as the series 100 Code, starring Dominic Monaghan and Michael Nyqvist. His 2001 novel, London Boulevard, was adapted for the big screen in 2010 and starred Keira Knightley, Colin Farrell, David Thewlis and Ray Winstone. 

Ken Bruen lived and worked in Galway – and so much of his work was set in the streets, alleyways and pubs of Galway.

He passed away overnight at University Hospital Galway, and is survived by his wife Phyl Kennedy, and their daughter Grace who Ken once described, in a piece for the Connacht Tribune, as ‘the abiding light in my varied life’.

***

Mystery Readers Journal: Irish Mysteries (24:2: 2008): 

"No, Not the Blarney Stone" by Ken Bruen

And

        ghosts

                must

                        do

                                again...

Those lines by Auden- which continue with 

            

                    what gives them pain

--what brings those lines to the forefront of my mind are the posts by Dusty and Alex about sometimes hating writing. Oh horror, heresy etc. a writer not always loving their craft. Arthur Miller well in his 70s, said, every morning he sits in front of the blank page and feels...terror. I don't think any of the writers I respect ever said it was easy.

    There are mornings, when I see a ton of email, I give a sigh of relief as it means I can defer actual writing for a bit. If I skip a day, for whatever reason and don't actually write, I feel guilty and no rationale will eradicate it.

    There's no real mystery, pardon the bad pun, to writing. You just sit down and do it.

    Right.

    How hard can that be?

    And writers block...they say, think of your bank manager, and you'll be back on track.

    The days of blankness, when I really don't have a single thought in my head, I just barge and blaze through it. Blood from a stone.