The Lock-Up: John Banville

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However, there are some lulls in the pace where Stratford and Quirke are reflecting and also where their love lives intervene. Overall, though, I enjoy this latest outing of this an easy duo and look forward to reading what happens next. It can easily be read as a standalone but the series is good and well worth reading. The death of the woman, Rosa, is ultimately tied to that Catholic-German (Nazi)-Israeli axis I mentioned above. That's enough on that. Booker Prize winner and “Irish master” ( The New Yorker) John Banville ’s most ambitious crime novel yet brings two detectives together to solve a globe-spanning mystery

John Banville provides a well written literary slow-burn mystery. As red herrings and clues mount up, intrigue and suspense slowly ratchet up to a satisfying denouement. This is not a barn burner, but an enjoyable and intriguing mystery, set in an interesting time in history, with exploration of political and religious differences of this time period.

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Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Despite their mutual animosity, Strafford and Quirke attempt to connect the dots that could lead to Rosa’s murderer. There are several theories, including her ties to an old, wealthy German family, Phoebe’s ex-boyfriend, Quirke’s ex-colleague and a woman who researched an Israeli nuclear weapons plan. Rosa’s reputation is tainted posthumously by people implying that her loose morals, rebellious nature and always getting herself into trouble led to her death. Rather than focus primarily on the plot, Banville is more interested in fleshing out his characters, exploring the complexities of their lives and highlighting how the often unseen forces of religion and politics shape decisions and outcomes. This is the third one in his Pathologist, Quirke and Detective Stratford series, following on directly from “April in Spain” when Quirke’s wife was shot and Stratford failed to save her. This is a major theme of the book as Quirke grieves and harbours resentment for this failure and Strafford feels guilt although he knows there was nothing he could have done.

Drily funny/odd detail: Banville, especially in his mysteries, likes to have fun with names, a kind of pulpy crime tradition, for example, Quirke is quirky. The joke with Strafford’s name is that almost everyone--including we readers--gets it wrong; he’s either Stratford or Stafford. Just messin’ with us.

Booker Award winner John Banville creates an intricate plot that examines Rosa's connection to the family of a wealthy German emigre and the hit-and-run death of an investigative reporter in Tel Aviv. While the storyline is well designed, Banville's greatest strengths lie in the development of character and setting. Both Quirke and Strafford are finely drawn, flawed, and very human, and very much of their time. Not only are the characters contextualized, but Banville captures the ambiance and mood of post-war Dublin.

Though the story is about the death of this woman, I found it to be more concerned with the individuals involved, affected by, or investigating what happened to her. Mr. Banville never saw a conversation which he couldn't dissect in rather excruciating detail. Every gesture, every nuance, every time a person looks away, or down, or moves a cup on a table - it has to have significance. So the dialogue - which I found the most interesting part of this book - must be read very, very carefully. Don't breeze through it! As Dr. Quirke, pathologist, and Detective Inspector St. John Strafford examine the case from every possible angle, their interactions are as interesting and as meticulously presented as the forensics are in many a similar book. These two banter, argue and even antagonize each other as they try to determine what really happened to Rosa Jacobs.Whether you like Banville’s writing style depends greatly on your preference for plot or character-driven crime fiction. Some sections reminded me of Sebastian Barry’s Old God’s Time, but Barry inserts a lightness through humour into his work which is mostly absent here. Maybe it’s time Banville gets his main character out of his own head and onto the streets of Dublin.