Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
4 1/2 Stars -- Every Page Packs A Wallop!, 4 Nov 2008
Once Were Cops is my first book by Ken Bruen but it won't be my last. If you like your thrillers lean-and-mean, very hard-boiled and where the characters' prose generates maximum emotional impact than Once Were Cops is a book for you. Without going into a lot of detail, the plot kicks off when Michael O'Shea, a member of Ireland's police force and (oh yeah, a sociopath) joins the NYPD as part of an exchange program and is partnered with Kebar, an extremely unstable cop with a reputation for heavy-duty violence. This is a team you won't soon forget and the havoc they create is gripping. While sparse in its writing style and length, Once A Cop is jam-packed with excitement and surprises. Be aware that once you start Once Were Cops you won't be able to put it down until you finish it.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark, profane, brutal...and excellent, 9 April 2009
First Sentence: "Where do I begin?'
Matthew Patrick O'Shea, knows as Shea, lives in Glasgow and is a member of the Guarda. He always wanted to be a decent human being and a cop. But he has a dark side that keeps him from being that decent human; a long a way from it.
He transfers to New York City as part of a police exchange and partners with Kebar, someone almost as out of control as Shea. They go from being partners and almost friends to enemies, with innocents damaged along the way.
Bruen is an exceptional writer. His writing is crisp and spare. Full paragraphs are the exception rather than the rule. Not a word is wasted or superfluous. He conveys more in a sentence that others do in a chapter.
He is the only author I know who can write a book about thoroughly despicable characters and make me love the book. And Shea is a thoroughly despicable character. It was, however, nice to have Jack Taylor put in a cameo appearance and there be a link to a Jack Taylor book.
This book is definitely not for everyone. It is dark, profane and brutal. It is also excellent.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
What's Green and Blue and Noir All Over?, 7 April 2009
Ken Bruen specializes in dark, brutal, intense crime novels which tap into the deep psychosis of a particular type of Irish soul. No Celtic tiger or Grand Slam champions here, but a grim complex of guilt about mothers, priests and emigration, the refuge of the downtrodden in hurley and drink, a deeply rooted ambivalence towards the law and the conviction that success and corruption always ride together.
In "Once Were Cops," Bruen moves beyond his familiar Irish and London stages to New York City. Galway Garda Michael "Shea" O"Shea covets an opportunity to participate in an exchange program with his idealized NYPD Blues. He makes his wish come true by applying a canny touch of blackmail. Once in the Big Apple, he gets in deep. He is partnered with a solitary, unpopular and brutal cop nicknamed Kebar on account of his liberal use of a metal truncheon with the same name. Kebar is on the take, though only for the purest of motives : to maintain his disabled sister in an expensive care facility. Shea quickly becomes implicated in the corruption and tries to extricate himself through illegal action. Internal Affairs begins to harry him on both his own and Kebar's account. As if this were not enough, Shea harbors a dark, deadly secret - I won't betray the plot, but think: "Dexter" - which takes him well over the edge. Then, as his world is exploding, he pulls a rabbit from his peaked cap and not only escapes but lives on to become one of NYPD's best detectives. The story fast forwards, and we see his past begin to close in.
Bruen manages the transition to New York well. His cop patois and neighborhood feel are convincing if not necessarily authentic. However, his plot has more holes than a bag of bagels: lack of realism regarding the organization or protocols of the NYPD; the unlikelihood that a rooky and foreign cop with a mouth on him like Shea's would emerge as the star of the Department; the mob's anachronistic use of a non-digital camera to garner incriminating evidence just because the story depends on recovering the photo; the failure of one of the best resourced law enforcement agencies on the planet to apply even a modicum of forensic science or crack some rather obvious cases; blatant stereotyping of Internal Affairs goons and Italian mobsters. It also loses momentum between the first and second acts, as if the final part of the book were a mere postscript included in the closing credits to let us know what happened to the protagonists after the movie was over. (None of them becomes President and very few become grandparents...).
Despite this shoddiness, Bruen's writing has a gripping quality that draws the reader in. This comes from the intensity , even at times the poetry, of the prose and the darkness of the mood. Bruen alternates between the first and third person and between inner and external dialogue. He writes short, spare sentences separated by blank lines, so that the book is considerably shorter than its 304 pages suggests (even more so given that there are two or three blank pages separating each chapter). Whatever this might imply about value for money, it is integral to the style and ethos of the novel.
Net, net, "Once Were Cops" is not without its flaws, but it is a good read - probably best with a cold Bud and a back of John Jameson . Or six or ten. Before duty.
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