"Killing of the Tinkers" starts with the return of Jack Taylor from London. If you've read The Guards (the first novel in the series), then you're aware that at the end of that book, Taylor had sworn off drinking and had gone to London for a change. Well, now he's back, and has fallen off the wagon. He is commissioned by the head of the clans (the tinkers), a guy named Sweeper, to find out who is killing off other tinkers, then mutilating the bodies.

As in the case of The Guards, the mystery is not the central focus here ... it is definitely the hard-drinking, now coke-snorting Jack. He is a very paradoxical individual; self-destructive yet erudite and extremely literate, even as he's knocking back shot after shot of Jameson to chase down his Guiness. Basically, he's a human train wreck waiting to happen, and I think Bruen's a master at getting into Taylor's soul and psyche. His characterizations of the other people that surround Jack are also realistic. In Taylor's novels there seem to be no tidy endings, so if that's what you want, then don't read this series. I'm fascinated with and can't get enough of the character of Jack Taylor, or of Bruen's writing. There were a couple of spots in this book that were laugh out loud funny, which seems incongruous given the dark and gloomy atmosphere of Jack Taylor's life.

I would definitely recommend this one to anyone looking for something good in the way of Irish crime fiction, and to anyone who started with Bruen's The Guards and is wondering whether or not to continue the series.

Highly recommended.