Banville is an Irish novelist and short story writer who is best known for winning the Booker Prize in 2005 for ‘The Sea’.  Often compared to Proust and Nabokov, he is considered a strong contender for a future Nobel Prize.

In addition to his literary fiction, Banville has written several books under the pen name, Benjamin Black, featuring a Dublin pathologist named Quirke.  Somewhere along the line, he abandoned Black and now writes the Quirke novels, such as this one as Banville.

This is an excellent detective/crime/mystery book which distinguishes itself from the Grafton/Crais/Child/Nesbo genre by its exquisite writing.  Banville has a fine eye for the details of description whether it’s the rainy, misty, grey of Dublin weather or the physiognomy of a character.  If you’re looking to describe the difference between literature and just plain fiction, compare Banville to any of his contemporary mystery writers.

In this book, the apparent suicide of a Jewish Irish 27 year old, Rosa Jacobs, becomes the focus of a murder investigation after Quirke notes subtle signs of violence while doing her post-mortem.  The investigation involves two of Banville’s other favorite characters, Chief Inspector Hackett (who comes off poorly) and Detective Inspector St John Strafford, born to the manor and now a Protestant policeman in a nation of Catholics.  The story winds through a wealthy German expat living in horse country in Ireland and his son, the attempts of Israel to develop an atomic bomb, and the influence of the Church on everything in Ireland.  If it sounds complicated, just wait until you read the epilogue.  Don’t skip it!

It’s a fine tale and an epilogue which I won’t describe to avoid a spoiler alert, raises the stakes in this tale and adds an entirely new dimension to what was already a page turner.

Highly recomended for both Banville’s fine writing and for a good story.