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| Once Were Cops: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Ken Bruen
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy New: $12.00
You Save: $10.95 (48%)
New (38) Used (11) Collectible (2) from $12.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.7 x 1.2
ISBN: 0312384408
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780312384401
Publication Date: October 28, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: new, perfect shape,
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Product Description
Michael O'Shea is a member of Ireland's police force, known as The Guards. He's also a sociopath who walks a knife edge between sanity and all-out mayhem. When an exchange program is initiated and twenty Guards come to America and twenty cops from the States go to Ireland, Shay, as he's known, has his lifelong dream come true--he becomes a member of the NYPD. But Shay's dream is about to become New York's nightmare. Paired with an unstable cop nicknamed Kebar for his liberal use of a short, lethal metal stick called a K-bar, the two unlikely partners become a devastatingly effective force in the war against crime. But Kebar harbors a dangerous secret: he's sold out to the mob to help his sister. Her rape and beating leaves her in a coma and pushes an already unstable Kebar over the edge just as Shea’s dark secrets threaten boil over and into the streets of New York. Once Were Cops melds the street poetry of Brooklyn and Dublin into a fast-paced, incomparable hard-boiled novel. This is Ken Bruen at his best.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
Grimly dark and sleazy December 28, 2008
This sure isn't a book for everyone. It's a fast read, but I don't think I would call it fun. It all depends on what you consider "fun".It's been said that there are no good guys in this, but I would say there's one. But this is extremely perverse and I'm not sure that there's anyone here who you would want to go out and have a beer with. For all the brutality and sleaze, the writing keeps the reader fascinated. I've read a couple of other Bruen books and find this the most readable. Definitely one that will be read in one sitting and thanks to the small word cout in spite of the 300 page count. You'll find yourself reading it from cover to cover without a significant break. And the ending...yeah, that will give you something to think and wonder about.
Fun Light Read About a Not So Funny Psychotic December 8, 2008
Ken Bruen's delivery of "Once Were Cops" - writing candidly, bluntly and occasionally awkwardky - follows the great American literary form founded and amended by Hammett, Spillane and others of the mystery milieu.
I state the delivery can be awkward as Bruen and his editors double space between paragraphs, most of which are simple one sentence pithy statements, and always indented from the second line and beyond - as opposed to indenting the first line only.
After the reader's eye gets accustomed to this different depiction of the written word on paper, the reader will discover that the writer is a serious mystery novelist who touches within the soul of the main characters and their occasional friends. In this case we must meet the unique and disturbing character of Michael O'Shea whose grotesquely harsh upbringing tarnished his soul and character to a point where he is as demonic as those who ruined him.
In a great twist of fate, appearingly benign O'Shea woos the hardest cop of the NYPD - Kebar - whose heart is as hard as steel, but whose underlying feelings are as easily manipulated as a child's. When O'Shea is to be yet another short term partner of this irrepressible bad boy cop called Kebar, we discover Kebar's bark cannot scare the O'Shea psyche.
Slowly the book delivers us deeper in the psyche to show us that it is psychotic. And we learn that these bad boys have more in common with television's and Florida's "Dexter" than they have with the stereotypical cop or gumshoe Sam Spade. The "hardboiled fiction" seen in mystery novels of the 20th century are evolving into the 21st century with psychotics bearing gold badges whose inner self is reviewed, and eschewed.
I liked the simplicity of the writing style and especially liked the author's poignant thought references and police-like short dialogue. His use of the double space and indentation are too nouveau for this old reader. I hope that is only a fad. But, the book, like most mysteries, ends with an opening to make you want to purchase the ensuing work. And, I want to read the next hoping to learn who was it that did the unanswered crime - although I, like most others, have a suspicion that it was . . .
Too dark for me November 20, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The other reviews have covered pretty well the plot of Once Were Cops, so I'll leave that as it stands. Ken Bruen writes in a gritty, spare style that is a sort of minimalist art. Once Were Cops is my first Bruen and I have to say it was an experience. With perhaps only one or two finely honed sentences per page, I had to shake my head over what he managed to convey with so few words. A major talent.
Having said that, I have to admit that this book was too dark for me. It actually made me more and more depressed as I got into it more deeply. That, too, is part of Bruen's genius in a way. I imagine if you're already a fan, you will appreciate this one but, again, I admit to needing a book with a lighter shade of noir.
 An amazing book, full of twists and turns and genre-busting events November 18, 2008
With the subtlety of a sledgehammer, ONCE WERE COPS has broadened the definition of noir crime fiction. Ken Bruen always has gone his own dark way while exploring such matters; here, however, he takes a quantum leap into territory previously hinted at but nonetheless unexplored. The bad guys in this book are awful, but the good ones are worse, and the plot careens through the pages like a car with brake failure trying to negotiate the downward slope of a coastal highway chock-full of switchbacks.
ONCE WERE COPS picks up where Bruen's Jack Taylor series leaves off. Taylor even makes a brief appearance, thus effecting a continuity, however tangential, between that series and what is sure to be the beginning of a new one. Michael O'Shea --- "Shay" to his acquaintances --- is a member of The Guards, Ireland's police force. Through out-and-out blackmail, Shay is able to connive his way into a law enforcement exchange program between Ireland and the United States, thus becoming a member of New York's finest. Shay is not exactly welcome and seems initially to be a fish out of water, even as he makes contact with Irish expatriates.
However, his pairing with a veteran cop named Kebar is an epiphany. Kebar is badly twisted, a dangerous man who is owned by the Mob. The etiology of Kebar's sell-out is his mentally disabled sister; every dollar he earns, honestly and otherwise, goes to her care. His anger at life's injustice, combined with Shay's smoldering dark side, makes for a violent but effective crime-fighting tool. But when the mob tries to bring Shay into its fold, what little control he had breaks, and the fish out of water reveals itself as an amphibious piranha. Bruen gives his readers dribs and drabs of Shay's true nature, at times with such a subtle flourish that one needs to re-read a passage here and there in order to fully understand that whatever pre-conceived notion one had about him was totally wrong.
If Bruen had wanted to write a book about a really bad lieutenant in the making, he could have taken ONCE WERE COPS to its logical conclusion and wound up with an unforgettable stand-alone work. Alternatively, he could have used this novel as an introduction to a series about an extremely bent rogue cop on the streets of New York. Instead, Bruen goes a different way. Shay's involvement with an Irish woman named Nora and her subsequent brutal murder bring another element into the mix. Nora's brother Joe is a retired New York cop living in Florida. His sub rosa investigation into the killing reveals truths that are a shock to him, and to the reader. By the end, Joe's investigation is only beginning. Yet, given what has gone before, can even Joe be trusted?
ONCE WERE COPS is an amazing book, full of twists and turns and genre-busting events. Bruen pokes and probes at dark corners where even spiders refuse to tread. This is a work of brilliance, of nightmares, an instant classic that is sure to become a standard of noir fiction to which all others will be measured.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Psychos all November 13, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Michael O'Shea is a calculating sociopathic Irishman, member of The Guards. He blackmails a powerful politician to be one of a group headed to the United States in exchange of American policemen in a trade agreement. He joins the NYPD and is paired with another sociopath, known as "K," and together they embark on a mad tear against all sorts of crime.
However, the partner has become a dirty cop to get enough cash to keep his incapacitated sister in an upscale facility. When his sister is found severely beaten, raped and comatose, K goes berserk. Meanwhile, Shea has been pursuing his own dark needs, while becoming a golden boy in the department. The combination is full of mayhem.
Written in a spare style, this noir tale is a must read not only for Bruen fans but all those who love a mystery. Recommended.
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