Book description
Time has moved on for Quirke, the world-weary pathologist first
encountered in Christine Falls. It is the middle of the 1950s, that low,
dishonourable decade; a woman he loved has died, a man he once admired
is dying, while the daughter he for so long denied is still finding it
hard to accept him as her father. When an old acquaintance approaches
him about his wife's apparent suicide, Quirke recognizes trouble but, as
always, trouble is something he cannot resist. 'Drug addiction, morbid
sexual obsession, blackmail and murder, as well as prose as crisp as a
winter's morning by the Liffey . . . Quirke is human enough to swell the
hardest of hearts' GQ 'A neat whodunit plot and a delightful command of
suspense' Independent on Sunday 'The death of Michael Dibdin left a huge
hole in crime fiction. Black and Quirke are filling that gap with this
wholly gripping account for the shady, priest-ridden and blithely
corrupt society of mid-twentieth-century Dublin' Daily Mail 'A romp of a
read, a compelling fix' Scotsman 'Dublin's clammy atmosphere and its
oppressive social and religious mores are a convincing backdrop to a
moving drama conveyed by a master writer' The Times
Benjamin Black is the pen name of acclaimed author John Banville,
who was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. His novels have won
numerous awards, including the Man Booker Prize in 2005 for The Sea.
He lives in Dublin.
