Tangled Web UK Review December 2007
The Silver Swan by
Benjamin Black
hbk out November 07
Published by Picador
at £16.99
This is the second outing for John Banville (ManBooker prize writer) in his guise as crime writer Black, and the sequel to Christine Falls. Lugubrious Quirke, a Dublin based pathologist working in the 1950s, is approached by a grieving husband and old acquaintance. The man asks Quirke to cover up the suicide of his wife, whose body has been pulled from Dublin Bay. Quirke complies but curiosity is his Achilles heel and his attempts to find out the truth behind the death leads into an unsettling world of drug addiction, sexual obsession and blackmail. Quirke, an alcoholic who has hauled himself onto the wagon, and who enjoys (if that’s the word) a cat and mouse relationship with local Inspector Hackett, is an endearing sleuth, not least because of his jaded eye and damaged soul. His struggles to accommodate the daughter he has only recently acknowledged are particularly poignant. Unique and deeply atmospheric.
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries and the series creator of TV Blue Murder)
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