The Book Depository Christine Falls by Benjamin Black
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Price: £9.99
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Description: Christine Falls : Paperback : Pan Macmillan : 9780330445320 : 0330445324 : 10 May 2011 : The first beguiling Quirke Dublin mystery. The Book Depository Christine Falls by Benjamin Black - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9780330445320
MPN: 0330445324
GTIN: 9780330445320
Author: Jl Adcock
Rating: 5
Review: Unlike most detective fiction, this first novel in Benjamin Black's Quirke series is worth reading simply for the writing alone. Not surprising, given that Black is in fact Booker Prize winning novelist John Banville. That said, I absolutely hated Banville's 'The Sea', so was very surprised to enjoy this opener in the Quirke series as much as I did. If anything, it's light on plot, driven instead by the atmosphere of 1950's Dublin and the wonderful characters. Quirke becomes a more tortured, darker soul as the book unravels, setting things up nicely for future stories, no doubt. The darker side of the Catholic church is also exposed, and, although it's been done in other books as it's familiar theme, it's handled well here. All the characters are vibrant, flawed people; you may not warm to many of them, but they are certainly real and plausible. Black also weaves in a sub-plot involving characters in Boston, tying the two strands of the book up in the third stage of the novel. It feels a little contrived towards the end, but the writing never flags, and it is the crisp, direct style, the beautifully drawn atmosphere (almost cinematic, like something Sam Mendes might direct) - that keeps you rivetted as a reader. It's like Chandler crossed with the very best of Irish writers. This is one of the few crime/mystery genre novels that I think would bear a second reading, the style is that good. Already looking forward to more in the series. Superbly crafted, superior fiction.
Author: Scarlet Noir
Rating: 2
Review: This was author John Banville's first attempt at writing a mystery novel, under the pseudonym 'Benjamin Black'. In my opinion, a good mystery/crime novels needs to score at least two out of three on: 1. pace of plotting 2. convincing characters and 3. quality of writing. I'm afraid Banville only scores 0.5/3. The novel plods along, with rather more detail than we need. Although Banville clearly knows many words, he fails to put them together in a memorable way - so even the writing is only 'average'. Worst of all, the characters fail to come to life, and are almost totally unconvincing. Spoiler alert: I'll expand on that comment with an example from the book. At one point, the main character Quirke receives a vicious beating from two thugs. Why does he not tell the police? He knows who the attackers are. (He seems to have a reasonable relationship with the main copper, who makes fleeting and rather disjointed appearances in the plot.) We are never given a convincing explanation - or no explanation at all as far as I remember. We are told that the thugs avoid kicking Quirke in the head, and yet we are supposed to believe that he loses consciousness for what must be several days - how come? He also seems to have serious problems with his memory as becomes clear near the end - so serious as to be totally unbelieveable. I have no idea if Banville's 'serious' fiction is better than this, but TBH I am not inclined to find out.
