Her Last Call to Louis MacNeice Book

Bruen's early voice in HER LAST CALL TO LOUISE MACNEICE reads like Duane Swierczynski by way of Ray Banks, yet the addictive and unique style that forms to create renowned PI Jack Taylor is still prevalent as Bruen so effortlessly engulfs the reader in his world of noir through his lead character Cooper and femme fatale Cassie.

Cassie is crazy and Cooper a criminal. One night of lust turns Cooper's already troubled life upside down. Fatal attraction to say the least. There's also the matter of a robbery gone horribly wrong which results in the murder of a bank teller and the subsequent hunt for Copper by the law and lawless alike. Being wanted is a distant second to living in isolation for Cooper.

HER LAST CALL TO LOUISE MACNEICE gives the reader everything you'd want from a pulp-noir story. It's train wreck following train wreck following train wreck as Cooper wades through the proverbial in an attempt to rid the stench of failure as much as find higher ground to ward off all those pitchforks.

I had a lot of fun reading this.

Review first appeared on my blog:

There's just something about Ken's writing and his characters that reaches into me...
There's not much to speak of in terms of plot, but I was so caught up with Bruen's storytelling and voice that it obliterated everything else. There's no story? No big deal. The characters are an archetype? Most of them are, at their core. But the voice, the sheer, barely concealed rage of it, is what grabbes me.

Ken Bruen is still writing some of the most original, noir, gritty and visceral crime fiction there is about at the moment.

Hard-Boil at its best.
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