A Death in Summer is my second encounter with John Banville’s alter ego Benjamin Black and his wonderfully laconic leading man, the pathologist Dr Quirke.
This novel, the fourth instalment of the Quirke series, begins with the death of newspaper mogul Richard Jewell, locally known as Diamond Dick. He is found at home with most of his head blown off by a shotgun and the scene conveniently pointing to a suicide. Local gossip runs with that theory while Jewell’s own newspaper insists he died from a cerebral haemorrhage but the local cops, and Quirke, soon suspect murder.
There are, as with all good crime novels, no shortage of suspects and Quirke and his police pal Inspector Hackett soon round up some convincing ones. A spurned business rival and his unpredictable son immediately enter the frame of suspicion, but interest also falls on the estate stableman with a violent criminal record, a young surly housekeeper, Jewell’s unsettled younger sister and his cool yet exotic French widow, Francoise d ‘Aubigny.
It is to this widow that Quirke pays the most attention and the two soon begin an affair. Meanwhile Quirke’s daughter Pheobe also has links to the suspect through her growing friendship with Quirke’s assistant Sinclair, who takes on a much bigger role in this novel.
Banville, as Black, again crafts a solid crime thriller with ease, nodding to the genre’s conventions while also bringing as certain amount of depth to proceedings. The traditional tropes of this type of story are all present and correct; Quirke tries to manage his drinking, gets too close to a witness and is warned off by a mysterious gang, but Banville also touches on the oft ignored issue of Irish antisemitism. As with Christine Falls, which I read earlier in the year, Banville also uses one specific case to explore wider societal issues, in this case, the treatment of young orphan boys in a care home run by the Catholic Church.
‘I hope you’ll forgive me saying it, Doctor Quirke,’ the priest said, ‘but you seem to me a troubled spirit.’
Quirke was surprised not to be surprised…’Do you know any spirits that aren’t troubled, Father?’
Quirke is an incredibly likeable character, depicted with a real sense of depth, and Banville’s narrative features satisfying twists and turns and a clever drip feed of information. Where the book excels though, unsurprisingly is in the prose which is as distinctive and enjoyable as anything in his more literary offerings. A blood smear left at the crime scene is compared to “a giant peony blossom, that blotted out most of the view of rolling grasslands stretching off to the horizon”, while someone smokes a cigarette “as if it were a task unfairly assigned but which he must not shirk”.
Quirke’s Dublin is also like a character in its own right. Banville doesn’t overplay his had when it comes to historical colour, but small details like the novelty of coffee as opposed to tea and the content of the local newspapers being full of ‘horses and dead priests’ is a reminder of how insular life was in Ireland at that time. Quirke’s Dublin is a city of secrets, where the truth is as easily overheard in the pun as it is in official records and the all-pervasive summer heatwave gives proceedings an oppressive feel.
While A Death in Summer benefits from not having to go over Quirke’s family background (as was the case in Christine Falls), it does suffer at times by focusing too much on secondary characters when the reader would much prefer to be in the company of Quirke. The ending isn’t too much of a surprise and hinges more on the reasons behind the person rather than the finger that pulled the trigger, but it all comes together in a satisfying denouement in the even sunnier South of France.
Where Banville excels is by taking the skeleton of a good detective novel and beefing it out with strong characters, a vivid setting and some genuinely gorgeous writing.
I read A Death in Summer for A Year With John Banville hosted by myself and Kim at Reading Matters. Next month I’ll be reading Banville’s 2009 novel The Infinities.
READ ON: Book
NUMBER READ: 475
NUMBER REMAINING: 271
20 BOOKS OF SUMMER: 15/20
