The hugely popular Galway crime writer Ken Bruen has died at the age of 74.

Best known as the man behind the Jack Taylor crime series, he was the author of more than 50 books over a stellar career that made him one of the most prominent Irish crime writers of the last two decades.

He was a past winner of the prestigious Shamus Award for best crime novel of the year; he also won the Macavity Award, the Barry Award, the Edgar Award – an award he was also shortlisted for earlier in his career.

Born in Galway in 1951, he was educated at Gormanston College in Co Meath and later at Trinity College Dublin, where he earned a PhD in metaphysics.

Ken Bruen spent 25 years traveling the world before he began writing in the mid-1990s. As an English teacher, Ken worked in South Africa, Japan, and South America, where he once spent four months in a Brazilian jail.

He has two long-running series; one starring Jack Taylor, the disgraced former policeman – with acclaimed actor Iain Glen in the title role – and the other, the London police detective Inspector Brant.

Nine of the Jack Taylor novels were turned into the eponymous television series, all shot around Galway city, with a host of local actors and crew members.

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.

His Brants and Roberts novel Blitz was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name, starring Jason Statham, Paddy Considine and Aidan Gillen.

Indeed Ken Bruen’s work was tailormade for the big screen on many fronts.

Bruen’s 2014 novel Merrick was adapted for TV as the series 100 Code, starring Dominic Monaghan and Michael Nyqvist.

His 2001 novel, London Boulevard, was adapted for the big screen in 2010 and starred Keira Knightley, Colin Farrell, David Thewlis and Ray Winstone.

Ken Bruen lived and worked in Galway – and so much of his work was set in the streets, alleyways and pubs of Galway.

He passed away overnight at University Hospital Galway, and is survived by his wife Phyl Kennedy, and their daughter Grace who Ken once described, in a piece for the Connacht Tribune, as ‘the abiding light in my varied life’.

His funeral arrangements will be confirmed later.

Caption: The late Ken Bruen.