Ken Bruen (born 1951) is an Irish writer of hard-boiled and noir crime fiction.

He was born in Galway, and educated at Gormanston College, County Meath and later at Trinity College Dublin, where he earned a Ph.D. in metaphysics. He spent twenty-five years as an English teacher in Africa, Japan, S.E. Asia and South America. His travels have been hazardous at times, including a stint in a Brazilian jail.

Bruen is part of a literary circle that includes Jason Starr, Reed Farrel Coleman, and Allan Guthrie.

Bruen's works include the well-received White Trilogy and the Shamus Award-winning The Guards. In 2006, Hard Case Crime released Bust, a collaboration between Bruen and New York crime author Jason Starr. Bruen's short story "Words Are Cheap" (2006) appears in the first issue of Murdaland. He has also edited an anthology of stories set in Dublin, Dublin Noir.

Other works of note include The Killing of the Tinkers, The Magdalen Martyrs, The Dramatist and Priest (nominated for the 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award in the category "Best Novel"), all part of his Jack Taylor series, which began with The Guards. Bruen is also the recipient of the first David Loeb Goodis Award (2008) for his dedication to his art. Set in Galway, the acclaimed series relates the adventures and misadventures of a disgraced former police officer working as a haphazard private investigator whose life has been marred by alcoholism and drug abuse. It chronicles the social change in Ireland in Bruen's own lifetime, paying particular attention to the decline of the Catholic Church as a social and political power. Themes also explored include Ireland's economic prosperity from the mid 1990s onwards, although it is often portrayed as a force which has left Ireland as a materialistic and spiritually drained society which still harbours deep social inequality. This is the side of the Celtic Tiger best portrayed in Bruen's Ireland-based novels. Immigration is also a theme to be found in these works.

He lives in Galway, Ireland. He is married and has a daughter.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ken Bruen", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0