1. I liked it.
2. Another reviewer commented that this was morally claustrophobic and there is a definite deliberate tawdriness that even one of the characters comments on. Certainly one should expect a noir to be dark, but Banville's world's incompetent sleaze is well-established even, and most importantly, in the protagonist.
3. If a forensic pathologist deliberately failed to report gross and toxicologic findings that showed illegal drug use and suggested murder, and then announced publicly in a legal action that he thought the decedent had died accidentally, at the very least he would lose his job. ( )

John Banville is one of my favorite modern authors, and I was tremendously excited when I learned he'd written noir mysteries under the pen name of Benjamin Black. The first of these [b:Christine Falls|199600|Christine Falls (Quirke #1)|Benjamin Black|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1425006248s/199600.jpg|1135062] grabbed me from page one, and never let go. For that reason I was a bit worried when I started this one; it was so bleak and depressing at the outset that it put me off, and I nearly set it aside. By a couple chapters in, however, I was hooked, although it does remain pretty grim.

If you aren't familiar with the series, the books focus on Dublin in the 1950s, which provides a neat substitute for the more familiar Los Angeles of Chandler or Ellroy. The main character is Quirke (does he have a first name? Presumably, but no one ever uses it), a Dublin pathologist who falls into solving a crime in the first book. At the start of this one, some time has passed since the end of Christine Falls, and a number of circumstances have changed. These have left Quirke, his friends, and his family, in a rather different state than that in which we'd last seen them. Despite many changes, Quirke finds himself again driven, reluctantly but uncontrollably, to get at the truth behind the death of a young woman, even while concealing the fact that it was murder from the courts and the police.

The structure of the book is unusual, in that the chapters alternate between a present that begins shortly after the victim's body is discovered, and a past that follows the life of the victim through the events leading to her death. As always in Banville, the language is beautiful, and masterfully wielded, to the point that I find myself stopping now and again to re-read a sentence, just to hear it once more.

I'll certainly continue to read whatever Banville writes.
( )

Quirk is the strangest kind of hero in criminal mystery story. I was puzzled why the final solution eluded him. ( )

Well written and dark. The characters are all varying degrees of broken in some way, and I suppose this is a natural result of the life in post WWII Ireland as much as a literary device.

Quirke is the protagonist, but not a particularly endearing one. He has involved himself in a scandal as in the first Quirke novel, Christine Falls. As the story progresses, we meet a number of unsavory characters that lie at the heart of the mystery. Most are sad, lonely, troubled people who seem to derive the only real pleasure in their lives by causing misery to others.

This is not a book that you will enjoy because of the personalities or the beauty of the setting. What is enjoyable is the writing, and the intellect of the author. The story is crafted with a somber artfulness which I appreciated. Mood is so important to this story and Banville/Black portrays it masterfully. It is more art than entertainment, but that is meant as a compliment. ( )

A wonderful follow up to his first book, the Benjamin Black series is, apparently, off and running. It has suspicious deaths, Dublin, and thoroughly hard-boiled dialogue. Totally worth it, but really ought to be read after Christine Falls. ( )