Jack Taylor Read online

  One of me best friends, a doctor, has fretted for years about my views on so-called justice and the tone of my books.

  He was, he said, my friend,

  “Despite your, um… odd ideas.”

  Three weeks ago, his daughter was very seriously mugged and he came round, not looking for solace, but for my hurly.

  When I put Jack out there, I figured maybe three books, and lo and behold, I’m on number seven…

  The bastard won’t go away.

  Cross, the sixth, went another direction, had to if the series was to stay fresh and challenging.

  More of a thriller element than any of the previous. It also showed the dying of the Celtic Tiger. We were plunging into recession after eight years of living it on the hog, and hog is the perfect term. It made us, indeed, greedy at the trough, and suddenly, they were taking it away. The sheen was off the tiger and we were… fook, in maybe financial trouble.

  We reacted like any child that you spoil and then take away the toys. We reacted very, very badly.

  Still do.

  And Jack, no longer shopping in charity shops, might have to return to them.

  And,

  He’s getting old.

  Losing his hearing.

  Has the limp.

  You ask,

  Jesus, how much longer can he go on?

  Indeed.

  Would the only woman in his life, Ridge… and of course, the only constant female in Jack’s life, who’s gay…

  take over the series?

  No.

  She doesn’t even read that much.

  When should a series end?

  Simple.

  When it’s stale.

  When you are no longer all that bothered by what happens to the main character. Jack is way past his sell-by date and if he gets through one more book, no one will be more surprised-or relieved-than me.

  I’ve been truly amazed by the response to Jack.

  The New York Times said he was as likely to give you a slap in the mouth as give five Euros to a homeless person.

  I kind of liked that.

  Brian Widenmouth, a fine online reviewer, suggested that Jack was already dead!.. and this was all in look-back. Long as he didn’t think I was dead too.

  An Irish reviewer said I must have been a cop… had to be.

  And you have to mention the movie.

  In limbo hell.

  Fookit.

  The first serious offer wanted a happy ending…

  And I said,

  “Happy?”

  I don’t do fooking happy.

  Shite, I don’t even do nice anymore!

  Then the casting… Now, that was fun.

  My mate of over twenty years David Soul was keen but couldn’t quite get that Galway accent.

  My only suggestion, and you know how much they take notice of the writer’s idea.

  Yeah.

  Right in the bin.

  But I always saw it being shot in black-and-white.

  Color… in Jack’s life?

  Naw, he’d reach for the hurly.

  The first offer to film The Guards was from a UK company, and they wanted it to be shot in Brighton, with Brighton Pier substituting for Nimmo’s Pier, a recurrent landmark in the series. Not only is it in the Claddagh, but it’s literally the last outpost before America and also the scene of Jack’s first real murderous act, the drowning of his erstwhile friend.

  I couldn’t agree. The number of actors, etc., in Galway who could sure use the work would never forgive me. And The Guards is such a Galway novel.

  The bookstores:

  Kennys,

  Charlie Byrne’s,

  Dubray’s.

  All pivotal to Jack’s daily life.

  And the pubs, like McSwiggan’s, where a tree literally grows in the center of the pub, the question arising, Which came first, the tree or the pub?

  As negotiations went back and forth, a ferocious storm hit Brighton and washed away the pier.

  God spoke, if not last, at least loudest.

  Jack would have loved the irony.

  Next serious offer, they wanted a happy ending.

  What?

  And sink the whole series on the very first book?

  I don’t do happy, as I’ve said, and neither, by Christ, does Jack.

  Research?

  I was assured by the son of a retired top Guard that I must have been a cop, and this has frequently come up. I take it as a compliment and I think, too, the fact that I was a security guard at the Twin Towers has muddied the truth.

  The title of my new stand-alone, Once Were Cops, will only cloud it further.

  I’m very good friends with a Ban Garda, a female Guard, and all of Ridge, her attitudes, comes from this source.

  A nice sidebar, I decided to have the Ban Garda in my books wear tiny pearl earrings, and I’m not saying it’s a direct result, but recently, I notice they are indeed wearing said items.

  In the beginning with Ridge, even I wasn’t entirely sure why she was so hostile and combative, and I woke one morning and knew.

  She was gay.

  Not that I’m saying being gay means the above, but being gay in a strict, traditional, macho organization like the Guards will certainly embitter you.

  In the new Jack, Benediction, he comes up against gay bashing, and yet again I had to battle to keep one particular scene, against the cry of it not being realistic.

  You guessed it, not one hundred yards from my home, a young gay man was beaten into a coma by gay haters and no, I wasn’t involved.

  Superintendent Clancy, Jack’s former partner in the Guards and great friend, is now his bitter enemy, and they regularly collide, with Jack taking the worst of it.

  The final showdown, if such it is, comes in the newest Jack, the eventual head-to-head that has been simmering for six books.

  As I wrote that scene, one song would not leave my head:

  Springsteen’s “The Price You Pay.”

  For a time, Thomas Merton and a pint were all Jack seemed to need, not always in that order, but you get the drift.

  Jack soured on Merton, as he did on so many others.

  In The Guards, Jack comments that he is so laden down with deaths, he feels like an old cemetery. Just about anyone who gets close to him is getting buried.

  I was delighted that St. Martin ’s, when they began the American publications, never asked for the language or tone to be Americanized. They went with all the Irish-ism’s, and I am so grateful for the chance they took on that.

  A question I’m rarely asked and would have seemed obvious:

  What do I think of the Guards?

  I have the height of respect for them. They are still unarmed, and the new breed of criminal is armed to the teeth.

  Every weekend, when the young folk go on the piss, young girls go into the water, usually in the canals and usually about three in the morning. Young Guards plunge into that freezing water and rescue them.

  And how do the Guards feel about me?

  Mmmmm…

  When The Killing of the Tinkers was published, a parcel came through my door, a solid silver Zippo with the Garda insignia on it and a note that read,

  “We don’t always approve of what you write,

  but keep it up.”

  It’s not exactly an endorsement, but, you know, it sure made my day. And what impressed me most?

  It was primed, fueled, flinted.

  You might say,

  Good to go…

  As is Jack, for one more run at it.

  Or, perhaps… limp at it.

  FB2 document info

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  Document creation date: 20 December 2009

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