Open House readers and contributors share recommendations for summer books.

The Lock-up

John Banville, Faber & Faber, 2023

If you like to pack a murder mystery with your beach towel, Booker prizewinner John Banville’s latest Quirke mystery might be for you.  The distinguished Irish author of The Book of Evidence and The Sea also writes crime novels, initially under the pseudonym of Benjamin Black. The novels feature Dublin pathologist Dr Quirke, and were made into a short BBC/RTÉ series starring Gabriel Byrne.  Banville now writes Quirke mysteries under his own name (Snow, April in Spain).

The Lock-up opens with the suspicious death of a young woman in a lock up garage in 1950s Dublin.  As the story unfolds, Quirke and Detective Inspector Strafford uncover links to a wealthy German family in County Wicklow, and connections to Israel which stretch back to the dying days of World War II.  The story moves from Dublin to Cork and back again, with Dublin playing a starring role, as it does in all the Quirke novels.  Banville conjures up its dusty railings, canal walks, sudden showers  and faded grandeur with great style.

Familiar themes emerge from earlier books: the corrupting power of the Catholic Church and its entanglement with Irish politics; the tension between the Protestant Strafford and his fellow Gardai (Strafford is sent to follow up a lead at Trinity College because he’ll know his way around); the shameful history of child abuse which overshadows so many lives, including Quirke’s.  One scene in a Dublin pub where Strafford’s boss, Hackett, has a conversation with the local bishop, is a masterclass in oblique communication and the power of unspoken agendas.

Banville is a gifted writer who was once literary editor of the Irish Times.  The Lock-up is peppered with literary references, from Brendan Behan to Heidegger.  This is crime fiction with style, its roots in Dublin, its tale spun by a master storyteller.

Eamonn Cullen