by Benjamin Black
I just finished this book. As I was reading this book, I feel like I have weighted blanket after weighted blanket added to my shoulders until I was hunched over almost in a ball of depression. The book is written well and while I don't mind a book that is deep and dramatic, this was so much more and...
It started like CSI Dublin... There are a wealth of fascinating characters in Christine Falls (more on that momentarily), but the atmosphere of the book is almost more compelling than the characters, or the underlying mystery (more on that as well). Quirke is a pathologist in 1950s Dublin. It sta...
Quirke is a pathologist and has a good life. During a party he discovers his brother-in-law changing a file to cover up the cause of a corpse's death. This story reaches into the echelons of upper class Dublin and Boston. Set in 1950's Ireland this wasn't quite clear until a bit into the story ...
Not a very likable protagonist, Quirke's story is very well written by Booker prize winner Banville. Wonderful imagery and "real/flawed" characters.
Dedication - To Ed VictorIt was not the dead that seemed to Quirke uncanny but the living.Opening - She was glad it was the evening mailboat she was taking, for she did not think she could have faced a morning departure.Seeing as my other St. Patrick's Day read did not pan out so well, I am having a...
I simply did not like the character of the main character in this book. I didn't find him to be in the least likable, and that's unfortunate. The story may have been quite interesting, but the main character completely turned me off to the book and to the others in this series.
John Banville writing as Benjamin Black summons up Dublin in the nineteen fifties, a city of smoke-filled bars and cobbled streets held firmly in the grip of a Catholic church so concerned with its own power that it has lost sight of right and wrong. This is a terrific piece of writing with all th...
Banville's employs his deft touch, but even his writing can't overcome the limitations of the genre, i.e. plot predictability, two-dimensional villain, etc. In parts, I thought I could even detect Banville's discomfort with the form, but maybe I'm just projecting. Remember the good old days of Wilki...
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