greenblack's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
bgg616's review against another edition
4.0
John Banville writing as Benjamin Black does not suppress his flair for writing beautiful prose in this novel. It is atmospheric, dark, wet and gothic. A friend of Quirke's daughter Phoebe, Jimmy Minor is found murdered in the Grand Canal. Quirke in is role as pathologist recognizes Jimmy, a crime reporter for a Dublin newspaper, and later shares the news with his daughter. With his friend Inspector Hackett of the Dublin Police, he begins to investigate the killing. He suspects a popular local priest is tied to the crime.
This is Dublin of the 1950's. Seedy, poor, and sometimes squalid, it provides a moody backdrop with lots of geographical details as well as a sense of Dublin of another time. Slow moving, but hard to put down.
This is Dublin of the 1950's. Seedy, poor, and sometimes squalid, it provides a moody backdrop with lots of geographical details as well as a sense of Dublin of another time. Slow moving, but hard to put down.
nonna7's review against another edition
5.0
This is the 7th Quirke book by Benjamin Black aka John Banfield, a very literary writer, not one who would be expected to write crime novels. As one reviewer wrote, these books are read less as crime novels than as literature. Because Black aka Banfield is a wonderful writer with incisive prose, haunting settings, the ability to paint a picture of the bleak, almost desolate place that was Dublin in the 1950's.
Quirke is a pathologist who has made friends - of sort - with Inspector Hackett who sometimes asks him to come along during an investigation or questioning. In this case, a young reporter, Jimmy Minor, who was a friend of Quirke's daughter, Phoebe, is found dead in the canal. His face had been beaten to a pulp before he died. Quirke is an odd and very interesting character - good looking, a drinker, something of a womanizer when he feels like it. (Although he doesn't like to wake up with the woman the next morning!) He is still developing a father/daughter relationship with Phoebe.
His wife died in childbirth, and he gave her to his brother and sister-in-law. The Catholic Church in Ireland is one of Quirke's pet peeves, yet he is unalterably marked by his past time in a home for orphans before he was adopted. There he was taught by the Christian Brothers with beatings and sexual abuse that stays with him. However, this is 1950. One just has to endure. Jimmy Minor's family show up to identify the body. His brother, who does the actual ID, is rather dismissive of Jimmy and his ambitions.
Then Jimmy's twin sister shows up and introduces herself to Phoebe in a rather strange way. Her family has disowned her. She lives in London and is also a writer. Hackett and Quirke go together to a tinker's camp (a general word that the Irish used for gypsies, at least at that time.) Hackett's men found the head of the clan's name in Jimmy's notes. There is also a letter from the head of the Trinitarians denying Jimmy an interview with a local priest. Quirke meets him. Soon it is obvious what's going on. Even so, the ending is stunning.
This is the best of the books yet. Black/Banfield gets better with every new Quirke. Hopefully, he's already working on the next.
Quirke is a pathologist who has made friends - of sort - with Inspector Hackett who sometimes asks him to come along during an investigation or questioning. In this case, a young reporter, Jimmy Minor, who was a friend of Quirke's daughter, Phoebe, is found dead in the canal. His face had been beaten to a pulp before he died. Quirke is an odd and very interesting character - good looking, a drinker, something of a womanizer when he feels like it. (Although he doesn't like to wake up with the woman the next morning!) He is still developing a father/daughter relationship with Phoebe.
His wife died in childbirth, and he gave her to his brother and sister-in-law. The Catholic Church in Ireland is one of Quirke's pet peeves, yet he is unalterably marked by his past time in a home for orphans before he was adopted. There he was taught by the Christian Brothers with beatings and sexual abuse that stays with him. However, this is 1950. One just has to endure. Jimmy Minor's family show up to identify the body. His brother, who does the actual ID, is rather dismissive of Jimmy and his ambitions.
Then Jimmy's twin sister shows up and introduces herself to Phoebe in a rather strange way. Her family has disowned her. She lives in London and is also a writer. Hackett and Quirke go together to a tinker's camp (a general word that the Irish used for gypsies, at least at that time.) Hackett's men found the head of the clan's name in Jimmy's notes. There is also a letter from the head of the Trinitarians denying Jimmy an interview with a local priest. Quirke meets him. Soon it is obvious what's going on. Even so, the ending is stunning.
This is the best of the books yet. Black/Banfield gets better with every new Quirke. Hopefully, he's already working on the next.
lauriereyes's review against another edition
3.0
For the love of Pete! I have listened to a few of this series (Quirke) and every single time it's (spoiler alert) the catholic church's fault. Every time. This author has some serious bitterness. And the reader is terrible. Very odd inflection and phraseology. I give it three stars because the guy is a good writer, but get off of the corrupt priesthood already, Mr. Black. You have become way too predictable.
blackoxford's review against another edition
2.0
Noir With a Conscience
But a fraud.
Peopled by characters you might not invite to dinner but who are nevertheless comprehensible as human beings: the alcoholic, emotionally damaged protagonist Quirke, his co-dependent, suicidal girlfriend Isabel, and his sympathetic but not terribly clever daughter Phoebe.
Set in a theocratic Dublin of the 1950’s, with a few blatant Irishisms and just a subtle touch of the sod in the voices of the more rural characters, there are brewery drays and wind-up telephones for colouring. But really the only colour is some shade of terminal drab. Every room is cold and every day is damp. Clothes never fit properly except if the wearer is a cad. No social intercourse happens unless lubricated by Jameson’s whisky in an atmosphere of Player’s cigarette smoke (Port is what one who is on the wagon drinks and the only non-smokers are those trying to quit). Seedy, louche provincialism, in the form of yokels, tinkers, criminals and clerics, continuously threatens to overwhelm urban civilisation. The mystery is more the ultimate direction of various interacting neuroses, including ecclesiastically inspired ones like homophobia, than it is the identity of the murderer.
Benjamin Black can't entirely resist the erudition of John Banville. So we are treated to some typically arcane vocab. Words like 'parp' and 'boreen' (to be fair, an assimilated Irish word), as well as a handful or two of gypsy bon mots defined in a handy appendix. But are these worth the price of admission?
I don't think so. The problem I have is this: if you're going to use a weak murder mystery on which to hang a greater mystery of the complexity of psyches, then the reader is owed a resolution; this we don't get. Clearly the author expects us to buy the sequel in order to find out what happens. Bad form in the worst tradition. No more Quirke for me I'm afraid.
But a fraud.
Peopled by characters you might not invite to dinner but who are nevertheless comprehensible as human beings: the alcoholic, emotionally damaged protagonist Quirke, his co-dependent, suicidal girlfriend Isabel, and his sympathetic but not terribly clever daughter Phoebe.
Set in a theocratic Dublin of the 1950’s, with a few blatant Irishisms and just a subtle touch of the sod in the voices of the more rural characters, there are brewery drays and wind-up telephones for colouring. But really the only colour is some shade of terminal drab. Every room is cold and every day is damp. Clothes never fit properly except if the wearer is a cad. No social intercourse happens unless lubricated by Jameson’s whisky in an atmosphere of Player’s cigarette smoke (Port is what one who is on the wagon drinks and the only non-smokers are those trying to quit). Seedy, louche provincialism, in the form of yokels, tinkers, criminals and clerics, continuously threatens to overwhelm urban civilisation. The mystery is more the ultimate direction of various interacting neuroses, including ecclesiastically inspired ones like homophobia, than it is the identity of the murderer.
Benjamin Black can't entirely resist the erudition of John Banville. So we are treated to some typically arcane vocab. Words like 'parp' and 'boreen' (to be fair, an assimilated Irish word), as well as a handful or two of gypsy bon mots defined in a handy appendix. But are these worth the price of admission?
I don't think so. The problem I have is this: if you're going to use a weak murder mystery on which to hang a greater mystery of the complexity of psyches, then the reader is owed a resolution; this we don't get. Clearly the author expects us to buy the sequel in order to find out what happens. Bad form in the worst tradition. No more Quirke for me I'm afraid.
valeriep's review against another edition
3.0
I am a big fan of the Quirke series for the great writing, good mysteries, and fantastic setting, but this is my least favorite to date. It just felt a little incomplete and not up to par. There were a lot of aspects in the story that had great -- but unrealized -- potential. And at the end of the book, I thought to myself that if this isn't the last of the series, it was setting us up for the next book to be the last.