Blitz (Brant Series #4)

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Noir with edge and attitude is is the best way to describe Ken Bruen's engrossing British crime novels, including this one featuring the return of cheerfully brutal and undeniably corrupt Detective Sergeant Brant. There's a new killer in town, and he's targeting cops. This time out, Brant has the help of two characters familiar from Bruen's acclaimed White Trilogy: woman Police Constable Falls, who is slipping into drug addiction, and Chief Inspector Roberts, who is reeling from the recent death of his wife. Joining this notorious trio in the hunt for the crazed killer calling himself Blitz are two newcomers -- an openly gay sergeant whom everyone, except the man himself, expects Brant to bash -- and a favored police constable Brant is determined to see fall from grace.

\ \ With his distinctive staccato style, Bruen tracks the action from several viewpoints, giving the reader vivid glimpses into the workings of both the police investigation and the chaotically cruel mind of Blitz as he strives to emulate his heroes -- serial killers all. The mayhem starts with the practice killing of a traffic warden, followed by boastful calls to a crime writer that seven "pigs" will die -- including Brant, who is targeted for the most horrific death of all. Blitz is a psychological duel between two men on opposite sides of the law -- men who are more alike that anyone would care to think. Sue Stone

Publishers Weekly

Fans of Irish author Ken Bruen will find the same poetic spareness and jaded romanticism in Blitz, an entry in his series about the South East London police squad, that mark the Edgar finalist's better-known Jack Taylor series (The Guards, etc.). In this intelligent, uncompromising hard-boiled crime novel, published in the U.K. in 2002, Det. Sergeant Brant and his beleaguered colleagues must contend with a serial killer nicknamed "The Blitz" who's targeting cops all over London. Agent, Marianne Gunn O'Connor. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.\

Library Journal

London's South East police squad is all fired up: Sgt. Brant, rude, violent, smart, and loyal to some, assists an unlikely bunch in stopping a maniacal serial killer of cops. Diversity rules here as the publicity-seeking killer, self-named "the Blitz," varies his strike locations and methods. His adversaries include a refined gay detective, the new black woman on the team, and the scary Brant. Rough humor, hurried tension, sketchy surrounds, and sudden death characterize this unorthodox British procedural by the author of the 2004 Edgar Award-nominated The Guards. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.\

Kirkus Reviews

South East London’s DS Brant, who could teach Edinburgh’s John Rebus a thing or two about insubordination, is less than thrilled when Porter Nash leapfrogs to acting inspector and is made temporary head of the cop-killer inquiry while Chief Inspector Roberts wrestles with bereavement. Equally troublesome, Brant’s protégée, WPC Falls, is flirting with alcoholism, slipping into dug addiction, and befriending a loathsome young Nazi skinhead, while Brant’s nemesis, shirt-ad handsome PC McDonald, has become the department’s fair-haired boy despite bollixing every case he’s assigned to. And the turmoil is about to escalate because the cop killer, craving media attention, contacts Harold Dunphy, the chief crime correspondent of The Tabloid, and offers him an exclusive on his deeds—for a price. As cops fall to the deadly touch of the self-dubbed Blitz, Brant and Nash zero in on his identity via a few helpful tidbits from a snitch, but not quite soon enough. The Blitz aims at Falls, misses her but gets the skinhead, and sets in motion a vigilante free-for-all that culminates in a dour, anti-legal retribution. Bruen’s staccato style (The Guards, Jan. 2003, etc.) is all his own, but it’s clear he’s angling for a place among the noir brethren, specifically at the right hand of James M. Cain.\

From the Publisher

"Intelligent, uncompromising hard-boiled crime."

—Publishers Weekly

 

"Bruen’s staccato style ... is all his own."

—Kirkus Reviews

 

"Satisfyingly plotted."

—Booklist