Once Were Cops (2008)

In Once Were Cops, a one-off from his popular Jack Taylor series, Ken Bruen introduces Irish cop Michael O'Shea, who has just finagled a one-year appointment to the NYPD. Once in New York, O'Shea is paired with Kurt Browski, a thuggish policeman who ''looked like a pit bull in uniform.'' As the two slash their way through a precinct brimming with dope dealers, rapists, and the like, several secrets emerge: O'Shea likes to strangle women, and Browski has a sister who's been beaten into a coma. Bruen, a master of modern noir, renders his prose in short staccato bursts, which is curiously mesmerizing — and, at the book's gruesome end, downright terrifying. A–