The Emerald Lie by Ken Bruen

Published by Mysterious Press (Grove/Atlantic) on August 30, 2016

At some point in The Emerald Lie, a character says, “I’m going to write a crime novel channeling David Foster Wallace, blend in the rules of grammar, have a broken-down PI, an enigmatic femme fatale, and oh, for the punters, a lovable scamp, as in the dog, not the PI.” Which pretty well sums up The Emerald Lie.

The Emerald Lie begins not long after Green Hell ends. Jack Taylor has made a lifestyle of devastation. In The Emerald Lie, he is trying to live quietly, taking his new dog for walks, enjoying his whiskey without a chaser of violence.

The father of a young woman who was brutally killed, apparently by someone who films torture porn, wants Jack to help him avenge the death. Jack has had enough of vengeance to know it makes nothing better, but he has a hard time saying no. His troubles continue when Emily, the crazed killer Ken Bruen introduced in Green Hell, returns to his life.

A second plotline involves a serial killer who selects his victims based on their grammatical errors. That’s a killer for whom I can root. The media call him The Grammarian. Making fun of a lethal grammar enforcer is probably Bruen’s way of thumbing his nose at critics who deplore his addiction to sentence fragments and unorthodox paragraph structures. Ridge, a character from past novels whose friendship with Jack often gives way to hatred, is investigating the killings.

Bruen always riddles his work with reference to popular culture. I give him credit for having the courage to say that some of the best American writing in the last couple of decades has come from television writers (Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and even, bless him, Battlestar Galactica), although he also praises some excellent crime novelists. In Green Hell, Bruen said that references to popular culture allow readers to connect to an author’s work. I would connect to Bruen anyway, on the strength of his honest characterizations of troubled people, but I also love the steady flow of song lyrics, movie references, and quotations from gifted genre writers who lack snob appeal.

As for Jack: “Desperation is its own beacon and I seemed to attract the worst and the worthless” pretty much sums up where he is in life. He carries so much guilt it is no surprise that he walks with a limp. Jack spends much of the novel reflecting on his tortured past, so readers who are familiar with the series might have more context in which to appreciate this novel than newcomers. Fortunately, Jack’s biting wit and pointed commentary on the surrounding world provides humor that balances the darkness of his life. Of course, Jack’s understanding of the world helps the reader understand Jack, which makes it possible to sympathize with a guy who has trashed his life and who continues to make sorrowful choices.

The plot in The Emerald Lie might not be as powerful as those Bruen crafted in some other novels in the series, but Bruen is always a joy to read. Clever prose, strong characterizations, and pointed observations more than make up for a meandering story, albeit one that works its way to a surprising finish. This is a book that Jack Taylor fans cannot miss. For others, I would suggest starting at the beginning and reading the novels in sequence, as Jack’s evolution from book to book is what makes this series one of the best in crime fiction.

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