In the debut crime novel from the Booker-winning author, a Dublin pathologist follows the corpse of a mysterious woman into the heart of a conspiracy among the city's high Catholic society
It's not the dead that seem strange to Quirke. It's the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpseand concealing the cause of death.
It turns out the body belonged to a young woman named Christine Falls. And as Quirke reluctantly presses on toward the true facts behind her death, he comes up against some insidiousand very well-guardedsecrets of Dublin's high Catholic society, among them members of his own family.
Set in Dublin and Boston in the 1950s, the first novel in the Quirke series brings all the vividness and psychological insight of Booker Prize winner John Banville's fiction to a thrilling, atmospheric crime story. Quirke is a fascinating and subtly drawn hero, Christine Falls is a classic tale of suspense, and Benjamin Black's debut marks him as a true master of the form.
This is a dark and depressing mystery where the main character seems to be constantly either drinking or recovering from a fight. Dark and depressing nature aside, it's very good. It's portrays a different side of Ireland than I've seen in fiction...neither feel-good family drama nor straight up political tale. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
Another Irish mystery thriller - and another literary one, too. This one revolved more around the Catholic Church than the others. It wasn't as exciting , but it was interesting and it did have some unexpected plot twists. All in all, I enjoyed it, but it could have been a bit more thrilling. Also, some of the back-story of the four main characters would have been nice to have a little more of. There is a sequel, but I'm not in any great rush to read it, though I do want to. I can wait for paperback though, for sure.