The Guards (Jack Taylor, #1)

by Ken Bruen

[empressbrooke]

I found Ken Bruen's novel Priest on the new book display at the library and was interested in reading it, but I figured I should start at the beginning of the series that features ex-Guard member and Irish PI Jack Taylor. I really, really wanted to like it due to all the crazy praise Bruen has received and the fact that the synopses for later books sound excellent. However, Bruen and I were not meant to be.

My main problem with The Guards is the style. It's like an exercise in minimalism. Most chapters last two pages, if that. No one speaks more than a sentence at a time, and each sentence is woefully short. There isn't even much sentence variety; it felt like the novel was chock-full of simple sentences. Paragraphs are unusual - there's so much white space in the book because each line only runs halfway across the page. Despite not liking it, this brevity let me read the 300-page book in one sitting. I suppose some people might find this writing style unique and enjoyable, but it made my head hurt and I longed for some depth.

I really wanted to like Bruen, but I just couldn't talk myself into it. I mused over reading his later Jack Taylor novels to just try to ignore the style and enjoy the plot, but I was so relieved when The Guards was over that I put this idea out of my mind pretty quickly. I wouldn't necessarily call this a bad book, and I'd recommend it to someone looking for something different, but it's just not for me.