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THE BRAND NEW STRAFFORD AND QUIRKE MURDER MYSTERY FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SNOW. A CHILLING MUST-READ.
‘Banville is one of my favourite writers alive.’ REBECCA F. KUANG
‘Haunting . . . compelling.’ DAILY MAIL
‘Richly atmospheric.’ IRISH INDEPENDENT
‘Suspenseful.’ OBSERVER
‘The repressed and sinister world of 1950s Ireland is exposed in beautiful, sometimes chilling prose.’ FINANCIAL TIMES
He had seen drowned people. A sight not to be forgotten.
1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn’t approach, but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person’s case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea.
Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally – the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke – a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways.
Praise for Snow:
‘Superb . . . crime fiction for the connoisseur.’ The Times
‘Outstanding.’ Irish Independent
‘Exquisite.’ Daily Mail
‘Compelling.’ Sunday Times
‘Superb to the last drop.’ Independent
On UK bestseller list w/e 13/11/2021-27/11/2021 for Paperback Fiction
Richly atmospheric . . . It’s a Dublin where you can smell the pubs, feel the drizzle, and taste the Bewley’s coffee. [...]At the centre of it all is the strained relationship between Quirke and Strafford, a couple at odds who are right up there with Banville’s greatest achievements.
Tight-lipped humour thrums through the latest in the Booker winner’s Strafford and Quirke crime series . . . The Drowned stands alone, too, suspenseful on its own terms . . . while it’s ultimately evil, not good, that gives The Drowned its crackling denouement, the novel takes care to part on a more cheerful note – even if the logic of the series demands that Quirke can hardly be content for too long.
The mystery is unravelled in Banville’s usual elegant and languorous prose; half the pleasure of the book is the changing relationship between the two troubled protagonists, who, as Quirke pithily observes, have one thing in common: “Death.”
John Banville is a master of misery. No one can render low-level despair and the smell of stale tobacco smoke as well as he does in his crime novels.
Banville’s sumptuous prose unveils a haunting web of human deceit that is both compelling and utterly beautiful.
John Banville writes crime like nobody else . . . the charm of these books is that they offer a captivating picture of Dublin, Wexford and Irish society in the decades before anyone in the Republic imagined the country would become a ‘Celtic Tiger’. Life is still slow, the mood autumnal, for Banville is re-creating the country and society of his youth - indulging himself in this recreation . . . he writes beautifully . . . I get more pleasure from the Stafford and Quirke books than from any other crime writer working today.
JOHN BANVILLE was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of many novels, including The Book of Evidence, the 2005 Booker Prize-winning The Sea, and, more recently, the bestselling Strafford and Quirke crime series, which has twice been shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger.
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