About this ebook
A South London kidnapping goes violently awry in this “startlingly original crime novel” from the award-winning author of The Guards (British GQ).
As pretty, well read, and available as she was, most men would have passed on a foul-mouthed jailbait junkie like Lisa. Not Nick. A bouncer from southeast London, he knew what he liked. He went in with both eyes open and stayed there—even when she burned through his savings and cost him his job. Luckily, she had an idea for bringing in extra cash: kidnap a local African American bar owner, a pretentious, yoga obsessed, Rilke-spouting man of means with a white trophy wife. He deserved a good punch to the gut. However, it was Nick’s bad idea to bring in his neighbor, a clean-cut, Reba McEntire–loving good old boy, and psycho to the bone. But not one of them anticipated Nick’s ex-girlfriend, Bonny, who came in out of the blue with her own agenda to ignite the biggest spark in the plot. The question isn’t who’s going to fire the first shot. It’s who’s going to fire the last.
“Fast-paced, tough and pretty sexy” (Pulp), Rilke on Black is further proof that the author of the Jack Taylor series “has become the crime novelist to read” (George Pelecanos).
As pretty, well read, and available as she was, most men would have passed on a foul-mouthed jailbait junkie like Lisa. Not Nick. A bouncer from southeast London, he knew what he liked. He went in with both eyes open and stayed there—even when she burned through his savings and cost him his job. Luckily, she had an idea for bringing in extra cash: kidnap a local African American bar owner, a pretentious, yoga obsessed, Rilke-spouting man of means with a white trophy wife. He deserved a good punch to the gut. However, it was Nick’s bad idea to bring in his neighbor, a clean-cut, Reba McEntire–loving good old boy, and psycho to the bone. But not one of them anticipated Nick’s ex-girlfriend, Bonny, who came in out of the blue with her own agenda to ignite the biggest spark in the plot. The question isn’t who’s going to fire the first shot. It’s who’s going to fire the last.
“Fast-paced, tough and pretty sexy” (Pulp), Rilke on Black is further proof that the author of the Jack Taylor series “has become the crime novelist to read” (George Pelecanos).
About the author
Ken Bruen (b. 1951) is one of the most prominent Irish crime writers of the last two decades. Born in Galway, he spent twenty-five years traveling the world before he began writing in the mid 1990s. As an English teacher, Bruen worked in South Africa, Japan, and South America, where he once spent a short time in a Brazilian jail. He has two long-running series: one starring a disgraced former policeman named Jack Taylor, the other a London police detective named Inspector Brant. Praised for their sharp insight into the darker side of today’s prosperous Ireland, Bruen’s novels are marked by grim atmosphere and clipped prose. Among the best known are his White Trilogy (1998–2000) and The Guards (2001), the Shamus award-winning first novel in the Jack Taylor series. Bruen continues to live and work in Galway.
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