Taming the Alien - Softcover

For the moment, the bad guys are having it all their way. Sean and Josie knife Det. Sgt. Brant in the back before hotfooting it to Noo Yawk; Roy ``The Alien'' Fenton, just out of prison, on hire from south-end London master criminal Bill, trashes Brant's flat, destroys his collection of Ed McBain novels, and scares the bejesus out of him with a teakettle of scalding water. When Sean is killed while attempting a mugging, Brant is dispatched to America to extradite Josie, little knowing that The Alien is now a continent away in San Francisco preparing to murder his former girlfriend and her new husband before taking a well- earned Mexico sabbatical. Back in London, Brant's protg Falls, newly pregnant but still tyre-iron tough, is hospitalized after being waylaid in a snooker hall, and Brants chief inspector, Roberts, can't find anyone wholl let him whine for a moment about his skin cancer. And let's not forget Bill the mastermind, who sends an overeager shooter called Collie to the airport to greet Brant on his return, with fatal results when Collie mistakes Josie for Brant's girlfriend. Bruen's plotting has improved since The Hackman Blues (1998). But this second volume in a proposed trilogy (A White Arrest, not reviewed) still quotes pop-culture icons and offers cute little lists (``Things to look for in a potential hit man: 1. Patience. 2. Cool. 3. Absolute ruthlessness'') in a hopeless attempt to update a noir attitude sealed in 50-year-old amber. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Is a book necessarily bad if you have to read it twice to understand who is doing what to whom? Is a book good if you're willing to read it twice? Taming the Alien suggests that the answers to those questions are no and yes. More a series of vignettes than a novel, it's the tale of a half-dozen people, London cops and the lowlifes they want to arrest. The vignettes are set in London, Dublin, New York, Seattle, and Acapulco. Author Bruen uses a clipped, telegraphic style--reminiscent of James Ellroy's White Jazzthat causes some of the initial confusion, but a second reading makes clear that the style is right for a tale of wild cops and psychopathic hoods. That style and the loose structure of the book allow Bruen to infuse his story with a brand of humor that is alternately sly, bizarre, ribald, and very dark. Call it postmodern noir, and recommend it to crime fans who are looking for something a little different. Thomas Gaughan