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Blitz (Inspector Brant #4)
by
Ken Bruen
The South East London police squad are down and out: Detective Sergeant Brant is in hot water for assaulting a police shrink, Chief Inspector Roberts' wife has died in a horrific car accident, and WPC Falls is still figuring out how to navigate her job as a black female investigator in the notorious unit. When a serial killer takes his show on the road, things get worse fo...more
Paperback, 272 pages
Published
June 1st 2004
by Minotaur Books
(first published 2003)
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Fourth in the Inspector Brant suspense series set in London and revolving around Sergeant Tom Brant, a corrupt, brutal cop with a heart.
My Take
Oh, I was so hoping the opening scene with the shrink would be Brant! It's one of the things I like about Brant---he has no compunctions about destroying self-righteous know-it-alls like Dr. Hazel. Then there's Falls' treatment of a group therapy leader...oh yeah….
It's an interesting mix of cops helping each other and, metaphorically, beating on each ot...more
My Take
Oh, I was so hoping the opening scene with the shrink would be Brant! It's one of the things I like about Brant---he has no compunctions about destroying self-righteous know-it-alls like Dr. Hazel. Then there's Falls' treatment of a group therapy leader...oh yeah….
It's an interesting mix of cops helping each other and, metaphorically, beating on each ot...more
After a number of run-ins with London's finest, Barry Weiss is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Not exactly a model of self control, Weiss decides to get even by starting to kill cops. In an increasingly sadistic series of murders he ratchets up the pressure on the Metropolitan police force as members of their ranks fall in the line of duty. The Met themselves are in a shambles - DI Roberts loses his wife in a car accident and slides into a mental breakdown. PC Falls experiment with...more
Just like the title would indicate this was a quick read.
Having already seen the movie I was surprised how faithful it was to the book
Though I thought the character and motivations of the killer were better fleshed out in the film and the plot was a bit more streamlined.
Bruen manoeuvres about a dozen characters in this book and somehow he makes them come alive with only a few lines of description. This was my first Brant book and it was a lot faster and less contemplative than the Jack Taylor n...more
Having already seen the movie I was surprised how faithful it was to the book
Though I thought the character and motivations of the killer were better fleshed out in the film and the plot was a bit more streamlined.
Bruen manoeuvres about a dozen characters in this book and somehow he makes them come alive with only a few lines of description. This was my first Brant book and it was a lot faster and less contemplative than the Jack Taylor n...more
This book was sent to us by a friend from France, and until we received it, the only thing I knew about Ken Bruen is that he had written the story behind the movie "London Boulevard". I am not sure how the book reads in French, but I have to say that I read this book in 2 hours or so and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Actually, I flew through the novel.
It is a simple "whodunit" story with really bad criminals and really bad cops. Everyone bends the rules, everyone blurs the line. Simple, almost form...more
It is a simple "whodunit" story with really bad criminals and really bad cops. Everyone bends the rules, everyone blurs the line. Simple, almost form...more
RATING: 3.5
PROTAGONIST: Detective Sergeant Brant
SETTING: London
SERIES: Follow-on to The White Trilogy
SUMMARY: Ostensibly, the book is a police procedural with the police squad chasing down a serial killer who is targeting cops in different beats around London. Nicknamed "Blitz", he is not a particularly brilliant killer. In fact, Brant and company are on to him rather quickly. Where the book excels is in its character studies. Brant is a confounding, rough, tough but somehow, against all odds, i...more
PROTAGONIST: Detective Sergeant Brant
SETTING: London
SERIES: Follow-on to The White Trilogy
SUMMARY: Ostensibly, the book is a police procedural with the police squad chasing down a serial killer who is targeting cops in different beats around London. Nicknamed "Blitz", he is not a particularly brilliant killer. In fact, Brant and company are on to him rather quickly. Where the book excels is in its character studies. Brant is a confounding, rough, tough but somehow, against all odds, i...more
Much against my own unwritten rule of starting with the first book in a series, book 4 was the first book I read by this author. Fortunately, that did not prove to be a hindrance.
Ken Bruen's style takes a bit of getting used to, but in the end I took quite a liking to it. It's very descriptive in its deceptive simplicity. Feeling sorry for his translators, though: having to translate this kind of contemporary BE is no mean feat.
I still have to watch the movie - will let you know about that later...more
Ken Bruen's style takes a bit of getting used to, but in the end I took quite a liking to it. It's very descriptive in its deceptive simplicity. Feeling sorry for his translators, though: having to translate this kind of contemporary BE is no mean feat.
I still have to watch the movie - will let you know about that later...more
Ken Bruen's style of writing won't be for everyone. It is spare and lean and hard biting dialogue. In Blitz, this dialogue is from the pov of newly introduced members of the Southeast London Police force - not a warm and cuddly group, but a hard drinking and hard living group of cops without much in the way of political correctness to their manner of police work. This book's cast and tone is similar to that of the Jack Taylor series (The Guards and Killing the Tinkers) and with the spare prose,...more
Very interesting.
This being my first foray into the gritty world of Ken Bruen, I wasn't sure what to expect. I discovered the closest approximation to the original noirs of the 1940's than I have encountered in quite some time. Ostensibly, a police procedural about a cop killer who calls himself The Blitz, the book is really more about the tragically flawed officers who try to catch him.
The tricks Bruen pulls with form made the pages just fly by. It ended perhaps a bit too abruptly, but I will...more
This being my first foray into the gritty world of Ken Bruen, I wasn't sure what to expect. I discovered the closest approximation to the original noirs of the 1940's than I have encountered in quite some time. Ostensibly, a police procedural about a cop killer who calls himself The Blitz, the book is really more about the tragically flawed officers who try to catch him.
The tricks Bruen pulls with form made the pages just fly by. It ended perhaps a bit too abruptly, but I will...more
tough, terse, taunt.
stripped down. bare prose. unlikeable characters.violence, corruption. killer on the streets. hard swearing and drinking. little description. lots of talking.
enjoyed the movie of this book.
book reads like a first draft of the movie. just missing stage directions.
stylish in a minimalist sort of way.
quick read.
good stuff, but no ed mcbain (one of the characters in the book is an ed mcbain fan).
will check out bruen again - but not sure i could go for too much of the same s...more
stripped down. bare prose. unlikeable characters.violence, corruption. killer on the streets. hard swearing and drinking. little description. lots of talking.
enjoyed the movie of this book.
book reads like a first draft of the movie. just missing stage directions.
stylish in a minimalist sort of way.
quick read.
good stuff, but no ed mcbain (one of the characters in the book is an ed mcbain fan).
will check out bruen again - but not sure i could go for too much of the same s...more
Sep 18, 2012
Mickey
rated it
4 of 5 stars
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Loved this. It is about a guy, Barry Weiss, who REALLY doesn't like the cops because he keeps getting arrested or beaten up by them. So to 'remove' his anger towards them he kills officers who have either already pissed him off in the past or random 'blitz' attacks around town. Two cops try and hunt him down and throw him in jail, DS Brant and Porter Nash. I watched the movie as well. It actually follows the storyline quite well for the 1st hour and then the ending was changed as well as a few l...more
If Jack the Ripper Told Bedtime Stories...
...he'd probably ask Ken Bruen to write his scripts.
Ken Bruen's "Blitz" is a rock `em, sock `em, no-holds-bar brawl of violent men and hard women on both sides of the law - an in-your-face tale told from the wrong side of London.
Remember the days when Lawrence Sanders was bringing crime fiction to the masses with NYPD's tough Captain Delaney and gripping crime drama like "The First Deadly Sin?" Well, carve up Sander's pedestrian prose with a broken-off b...more
...he'd probably ask Ken Bruen to write his scripts.
Ken Bruen's "Blitz" is a rock `em, sock `em, no-holds-bar brawl of violent men and hard women on both sides of the law - an in-your-face tale told from the wrong side of London.
Remember the days when Lawrence Sanders was bringing crime fiction to the masses with NYPD's tough Captain Delaney and gripping crime drama like "The First Deadly Sin?" Well, carve up Sander's pedestrian prose with a broken-off b...more
Nine times outta ten the sequel never matches up to the original. Oh Ken, Ken, Ken - you were on such a roll with The White Trilogy. I was impressed. I was hooked. I thought I'd stumbled upon the new Irish literary messiah. Hell, maybe I put too much on ya. But there was such promise. And though it was entertaining, sadly, your Blitz didn't deliver the goods.
I really enjoyed this story. I first saw the movie and then wanted to read the book it was based on. I thought they both were very good. I didn't realize Brant was a recurring character until I finished this book. Now I need to find the first three. :-)
Read the whole book in one day while home sick. Hardboiled and fastpaced - soon to be a movie starring Jason Statham.
They made a film of this. Jason Statham. Not too shabby. Bruen doesn't mince words.
A quick read, good story but felt very brief - read it in an hour
Ken Bruen is like no other writer I've read. A combination of hard-boiled, hard-assed cop fiction and gritty street life with an astonishing underlay of literary and emotional depth. Everyday banality and erudite references dwell together, all polished with a wicked sense of humour.
I'll be done with this in about 20 minutes and am enjoying this much more than the last Bruen I read (the Hackman Blues, one of the few I've read by him that didn't completely take over my life for a few days.) I want to be Inspector Brant...
If you haven't read Ken Bruen, you have a treat in store. Great noir writer from Ireland. His Jack Taylor character is wonderful, a depressed alcoholic ex-cop to whom the downtrodden come to find lost loved ones. Great antihero.
Ken Bruen is a unique voice in crime fiction. He is truly a punk rock writer. He writes in short blasts of witty bitter truthful blurts and blasts. But he doesn't let his style overwhelm is substance.
I'm not crazy about the heavy amount of dialog compared to narrative, but the hardboiled and pared-down characters were a blast. The whole read was a shot in the gut, in a good way.
#4 Inspector Brandt gritty crime mystery, set in London
Bruen does hard boiled so well!
Bruen does hard boiled so well!
Another fast paced crime novel from the Irish master. A politically incorrect heaven.
see White Arrest,
more of the same,
awesome.
more of the same,
awesome.
Jun 14, 2013
Doug Alexander
marked it as to-read
Jun 07, 2013
Fay Eskin
marked it as to-read
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Ken Bruen, born in Galway in 1951, is the author of The Guards (2001), the highly acclaimed first Jack Taylor novel. He spent twenty-five years as an English teacher in Africa, Japan, S.E. Asia and South America. His novel Her Last Call to Louis Mac Niece (1997) is in production for Pilgrim Pictures, his "White Trilogy" has been bought by Channel 4, and The Guards is to be filmed in Ireland by De...more
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Jan 20, 2013 06:41am