Christine Falls: A Novel (Quirke, 1) Paperback – January 22, 2008

A very intriguing story of love and loss. Flawed characters all. Great pacing and unfolding of elements of the story. In the end, love and loss and perhaps redemption, whatever that means.

Commenting more on the quirk series than on this specific novel.These walk the line between noir genre and literature more generally. They are set in Dublin in the 50s. Quirk is wealthy but ireland is not, and even the scenes with rich people have a drab and gray feeling. Nobody is capable of honest and effective communication. People interact but fundamentally don't connect. Quirk is a medical examiner but he hardly ever has to work or even to show up. He has no career ambitions, or romantic objectives. Despite being a very passive person he is magically attractive to women, but his relations with women are marked by an inability to fully connect. Feelings are always withheld. The past is grim and dark and haunts the present. Poor Pheobe is never going to be happy. Seems very irish to me.Quirk is sometimes funny--once he buys a car even though he can't drive, and humor takes place. Hackett is amusing. They don't really "detect" anything, they just kind of blunder along and stuff happens. Quirke and Hackett have a bit of a holmes and watson thing going on: Hacket is the exceptional good guy in the series in that he actually accomplishes things. But the overall tone is regret, the weight of the past, and a kind of enervating gloom. "A Death in Summer" takes place in the long irish summer days, and involves a hotty frenchwoman, but it still always feels like a gray day in October.Black is a very good writer and the Celtic gloom isn't oppressive or depressing. There's kind of a kafka-esque thing going on, where we are invited to laugh at the absurdity of human tragedy. Christine Falls is probably the bleakest of the series--they get lighter as they go along.I have a feeling he's done with Quirk--at the end of the last novel things were looking up. Pretty sure if there is another one all that will have to change.

This my first book to read by "Benjamin Black" and I read it because Black is a pen name for literary author John Banville. I was hoping, Banville being a literary author and winner of the Booker Prize, the writing style might be more interesting than the typical mystery novel. Unfortunately that was not the case for me. I have not read any of Banville's works under his real name and probably won't. I thought this book was okay for a mystery genre novel. The plot was driven forward by the author and I did want to find out what was going to happen next. However, the writing style was not very interesting and the characters, especially the main character, were very familiar and therefore not particularly interesting. The ending/twist that comes in most mystery/detective stories was predictable and signaled fairly early in the book. I would consider this a beach read or a book on tape for a long drive. Not bad but certainly less than I was expecting from a Booker Prize winning author.

Like some other readers, I too bought Christine Falls because I knew the name of the real author. After reading the book, I am puzzled about what John Banville is actually doing here because this is not a true "tale of suspense" (blurb on cover) or a true crime novel and his other novels are certainly atmospheric and often involve crime. In short, the book seems a bit strained as if the real author is working to construct a supposed popular novel.The plot is quite contorted and rather dense. The characters, moreover, are often mere ciphers. An example of this is the main character's, Quirke's, supposed nemesis Costigan. "Costigan was a thickset man with heavy black hair swept straight back from his forehead. He wore horn-rimmed spectacles that magnified his eyes." This description and the fact that Costigan is an evil thug is all the closer the reader ever gets to Costigan. The novel's themes revolve around good/ bad, adoption/blood relationships, sin/redemption, ability to love/inability to love. I found the descriptive parts of the book to be far better written than the dialog. I cannot help comparing the revealing dialog between Sarah (Quirke's sister-in-law) and Quirke about Phoebe (Sarah's supposed daughter) to the conversation in The Sea between the main character and his wife after they come back from the doctor. The latter is burned into my mind; the former I did not quite get.This book is certainly worth reading, but it is not a suspenseful crime novel. Much of the writing is quite beautiful. The blurbs promise a sequel or two, so maybe Black leaves things a bit blurry because he intends to clear them up at a later date.

Christine Falls was the first in the series of Quirke novels by Benjamin Blake (aka John Banville). It is a masterpiece! This thriller takes the reader in the closed Irish society both in the republic and in Boston. Quirke is a man traumatized by years of abuse in an orphanage before he was adopted by a Dublin judge. He is a pathologist who, following an autopsy, discovers attempts to falsify the reports. In his search for an explanation, he runs into a network of trafficking of infants across the Atlantic, for the purpose of “saving souls”.Quirke is a very tormented character who has been marked forever by his years of abuse in orphanage. He escapes reality in alcohol and feels incapable to engage personally. His search for truth leads him very close to home, and forces him to face some of his own responsibilities, mostly to his daughter Phoebe, whom he pretended to believe to be his niece. Phoebe is the rebel who cannot suffer the rancid atmosphere of the society and her family. Her journey could have ended in tragedy, but she is a survivor.The book perfectly recreates the stale atmosphere of the enclosed catholic Irish society on both sides of the Atlantic where rebels were treated with the most extreme cruelty. There are many characters in the book, and are all well drafted. John Banville’s prose is impeccable, and he has created in Quirke and Phoebe, with their frailties and strengths, the most attaching personalities to be found in a thriller. And fortunately, their journey will not end here. There are several more Quirke novels. A suivre.

john Banville (Benjamin Black) por su inteligencia y arte de explicar y describir situaciones y personas muy complejas. El relato fascina, no cae nunca en soluciones faciles, de estas que te hacen mover paginas rapidamente, para llegar al final. Aquí se saborea cada momento, situación. Su dominio de su idioma te mantiene atenta hasta el final que no defrauda. Voy a leer mas de la serie.

I have read all the Quirke novels and I have enjoyed most of them. The central character, Quirke is a pathologist in a Dublin Hospital who parters with a senior police officer, Hackett, to solve crimes, usually murder. Quirke is a flawed character, as is often the case with John Banville's' characters. His childhood was shaped by the brutal treatment of life in an orphanage and later by the death of his wife. He is an alcoholic and emotionally restricted.This book, which is the first in a series, centres around the corrupt trade in babies, born to unmarried women in Catholic institutional homes. The babies are sent to America for informal adoption, with the intention of building a source of candidates for the priesthood. The protagonists in this trade include a judge, who is Quirk's adoptive father and various members of the Catholic hierarchy. The theme of the malign influence of Catholic power is carried forward through the Quirk series.

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.

It was a good book. But slow to start but enjoyed it.