Review: "Galway's Edge" by Ken Bruen

 

Galway’s Edge by Ken Bruen Mysterious Press, 2025   Galway’s Edge (scheduled for release Mar. 4) is a wild-eyed and far-ranging crime novel written as only Ken Bruen can: a splash of poetry; a dash of morality, or the absence of morality, perhaps; a pinch of madness; and a dollop of justice. This is the eighteenth book featuring Galway, located on the western shore of Ireland, private eye Jack Taylor. Jack is hired by the rotund Father Richard, a papal troubleshooter from Rome, to clean up a local vigilante group called Edge. Edge is comprised of five of Galway’s leading citizens, including the Church’s own Father Kevin Whelan. Father Richard’s masters in the Vatican are concerned about the potential for bad press if Whelan’s involvement becomes widely known. But before Taylor can do anything about Whelan, the priest is found in his own backyard dangling from a rope. Soon after, another member of Edge is stabbed to death, and it becomes obvious Edge’s leading citizens are being targeted by a multi-millionaire with a grudge against the group. As Taylor investigates Edge and the millionaire, he does side jobs for a nun hoping to retrieve a stolen crucifix, a battered wife looking for breathing room from her husband, and a terminally ill man hoping Jack will kill him. Happily, one or two of the subplots tie-in nicely with Edge, the millionaire, and Father Richard. Galway’s Edge is a sparkling examination of the steaming rot of humanity’s underbelly—a rot that, as you read, you realize affects us all. The tale spans parts of eight months, November 2022 to June 2023, and many of the chapters are introduced with real life events. A cover-up of an Irish cervical cancer test that gave false negatives. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Donald Trump’s avoidance of consequences in the United States…and so and so on. These real-world events underscore the absurdity of our shared morality—is it any more or less moral for Taylor to kill a man dying of cancer than it is for a government to wage war, a criminal to be elected as the president of the U.S.? Which gives Galway’s Edge a dour expression, but Bruen’s sly wit rescues it from utter darkness. And while Taylor is a hard man with his own distinct sense of morality, which usually conflicts with society’s expectations, his reasoning is never abstract and always understandable. Galway’s Edge is, as is Ken Bruen, the real deal—interesting, thought-provoking, and in equal parts ugly and redemptive.

Check out Galway’s Edge at Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.