Priest is a nominee for a 2008 Edgar Award for Best Novel.This is Bruen's fifth novel with ex-Garda Siochana (police force) Jack Taylor. If possible, you should read the series in order.I skipped the previous book, The Dramatist, and, while not lost, there were details that would have helped to understand characters and events.

The book set in Galway and opens with Jack coming back to awareness in a mental hospital where he had been committed after a personal tragedy left him unable to cope with reality.After being released, becomes involved, unofficially, in the investigation of the murder and decapitation of a Catholic Priest, Father Joyce. Jack has a peculular and verbally hostile supporter in Ridge, a lesbian detective in the Garda who earlier put Jack in the hospital. There are forces in Galway who do not want Jack to pursue his investigation.

Along the way, Jack gains an unlikely partner, a young man who's idea of the work and lifestyle of private investigators appears to be based on too many TV shows and movies. He provides the lighter, comic elements to a side story line.The story lines are interesting but the real focus is Jack's attempt to deal with his alcoholism and inner torments. It makes for dark, gritty, painful reading and comes across as a realistic portrait of a recovering alcoholic.

The Catholic church doesn't fare too well in Priest. None of the clergy are remotely sympathetic as Jack's investigation turns up evidence that Father Joyce had an unnatural fondness for little boys.

Ken Bruen writes clean, spare prose without anything that could be considered filler. He is the master of the one word paragraph. Where other authors use punctuation to describe a lost of words, concepts, etc., Bruen creates his lists as if he was writing them down on a notepad. For example, here is the opening sentence of Priest:

What I remember most about the mental hospital     The madhouse     The loony bin     The home for the bewilderedis that a black man may have saved my life.and these sentences:I picked it up. Pascal, Pensees.     Stole that.     Didn't think I'd ever open it.     I was wrong.

If a word isn't absolutely necessary, Bruen doesn't use it.

Priest is a dark look at contemporary Ireland, the Church, and society. It is a compelling read.