MAY 2023 - AudioFile
AUDIOFILE Golden Voice John Lee brings Booker Prize winner John Banville's circuitous mystery clarity, assurance, and intelligence. After a young woman's body is found in a lock-up garage after what appears to be a suicide, Dublin pathologist Dr. Quirke discovers signs of foul play. Quirke and DI Stratford, attempting to put aside their personal animosities and resentments, begin a murder investigation. In Banville's fourth crime story featuring the duo, Lee creates a turbulent mood that reflects postwar Dublin in the 1950s. He provides credible characters with spot-on Irish lilts and authentic personalities. Moving from Italy to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, from Ireland's deep-rooted anti-Semitism to its opposition to women's rights, the audiobook is best when revealing personal backstories. Lee's outstanding performance doesn't miss a nuance. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
"Elegant...with finely wrought moments that make you want to slow down to savor them."—New York Times Book Review
"Another worthy thriller from the Irish master novelist."—Kirkus
“Strikingly beautiful prose…Banville's complete mastery of mood wins the day.”—Booklist
"A haunting and memorable experience."—New York Journal of Books
"Banville at his best...a novel that will have his readers hooked."—Financial Times
"The Lock-Up is to be relished above all for its richly realised characters, and their understanding of the vagaries of human nature."―Scotsman"The ultimate page-turner, expertly paced and beautifully written."―Irish Independent"A hypnotic thriller. . . with prose this lush and mordantly funny, it's a shame it has to end."― Sunday Business Post
praise for the author New York Times Book Review
A grand writer with a seductive style.”
Kirkus Reviews
2023-05-24
A detective and a pathologist in 1950s Ireland suspect an apparent suicide is actually a murder.
When Rosa Jacobs is found dead in a garage, it initially looks like an open-and-shut case. The body of the 27-year-old woman, a history scholar in 1950s Dublin, is discovered behind the wheel of a car, with its hood up and most of its windows closed, a hose connecting the exhaust pipe to a gap in the driver’s side window. DI St. John Strafford is assigned to the case, as is Dr. Quirke, a pathologist who doubts that the case is a suicide—he noticed marks on Rosa’s mouth, which he thinks points to her having been gagged and anesthetized before being put in the running car. The two men’s investigation leads them to a German family that Rosa knew; they hear rumors that Rosa was romantically involved with one member, Frank. (The idea that Rosa, who was Jewish, would befriend Germans so soon after World War II strikes many involved in the case as odd.) The plot thickens as the investigators discover that a friend of Rosa’s from Tel Aviv has been killed by a hit-and-run driver. Throughout the novel, the difficult relationship between Strafford and Quirke is explored; Quirke’s wife was shot to death in Spain some time before, and Strafford killed her killer. Quirke turned to alcohol after his wife’s murder, and his personality has become unpredictable: “Quirke’s mere presence in a room had an incendiary effect. He was like phosphorus, that burns in air.” This novel succeeds on the considerable strength of its characters, especially the quicksilver Quirke and the quiet Strafford. The prose and dialogue are stellar, as one would expect from the Booker Prize–winning Banville, and the ending comes as a complete shock. Banville has written several novels featuring Quirke, mostly under the pen name Benjamin Black; this one is a worthy addition to that series.
Another worthy thriller from the Irish master novelist.
