Jack Taylor can't catch a break; everything keeps turning south in his life. After finally embracing a new protege in the previous novel, and opening up his heart to him, he had to face reality again when his new friend was shot down an put in a coma. Now Jack has to deal with the pain of losing another close person in his life and with the brutal fear of finding out the reason behind the shooting and whether it was caused by his previous actions or not. Of course, while this is going on, he is still battling with remaining sober and walking a tight rope knowing a false step will send him to the abyss.

In this installment, Bruen takes huge strides forward in terms of character development and in expanding the plot lines that involve some of the main characters in the series, such as Ridge, the guard, Stewart, a drug dealer, and Jeff and Cathy, the parents of the girl that died under Jack's care. This was good enough for me to find this book fascinating, but add on top of that a mesmerizing case, involving a couple of brutal murders and you end up with one of the best novels in the series so far.

I have been under a spell lately, finding myself unable to stop reading this books, jumping from one to the next. Now I am just dreading the time when I will run out of Jack Taylor books. If you have not read this series, go back to the beginning, with [b:The Guards|298920|The Guards (Jack Taylor, #1)|Ken Bruen|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1314809323s/298920.jpg|290013] and I hope you get as much enjoyment out of it as I have.