The lock-up A novel

We left Dublin pathologist Quirke at the end of April in Spain (2021) devastated over the death of his wife, Evelyn. Now he's back at work in 1950s Dublin, dealing with grief by carving up cadavers and nosing his way into another murder investigation. Rosa Jacobs was a history student and agitator for left-wing causes until she died from carbon monoxide poisoning in her locked car. Suicide? Quirke thinks not and starts digging, along with DI St. John Strafford, with whom Quirke has a troubled past. The trail leads to a German financier with a mysterious war record who may be helping the Israelis develop an atomic bomb. Along the way to a somewhat peculiar conclusion, Quirke falls into an affair with Rosa's sister, putting his "poor, pummelled heart" in line for another beating. The Quirke series is notable for its all-pervasive melancholy (though always spiked with deliciously dark wit) and for the strikingly beautiful prose that Banville employs to evoke his browbeaten hero's many shades of black. The plot is a little wonky this time, but Banville's complete mastery of mood wins the day.

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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.