The drowned A novel

Wymes knows he's asking for trouble when he approaches the Mercedes SL abandoned in a field in the dark, the door thrown open, the engine running. Sure enough, he's soon entangled with a jangly man claiming that his wife ran from the car and threw herself into the sea. Wymes convinces Armitage to seek help at the nearest house, rented for the summer by the contentious Ruddocks. When Detective Inspector St. John Strafford arrives from Dublin, he senses static between Armitage and the Ruddocks, but his inquiry takes second place to his brooding over his wife's request for a divorce, a tricky maneuver in 1950s Ireland, and his tentative relationship with Phoebe, daughter of his colleague, the pathologist Quirke. In the latest episode in the exceedingly moody, deeply analytical Strafford and Quirke series, Banville slowly links new, puzzling crimes with those in The Lock-Up (2023) as his complicated characters thrash in the grip of class, religion, and gender strictures, holding secrets and emotions close, until things suddenly turn violent. Banville leaves readers primed for the next tale starring his profoundly conflicted investigators.

Booker winner Banville's latest crime saga featuring Det. Insp. John Strafford and pathologist Garret Quirke (after April in Spain) is a lyrical but lugubrious affair. On an October evening in the 1950s, hermit Denton Wymes finds an abandoned Mercedes in a field on Ireland's southeastern coast. Soon, a man named Armitage crests a nearby hill and tells Wymes that his wife may have just drowned herself. The pair seeks help at a nearby cottage, where the residents and Armitage act oddly. After Wymes contacts the police, Strafford's boss sends him from Dublin to investigate. Upon his arrival, he discovers that Armitage "seemed to regard the disappearance of his wife as little more than an inconvenience," but without a body, the investigation has little to go on. Instead, Banville zeroes in on Strafford's impending divorce; his bumbling affair with Quirke's daughter, Phoebe; and Quirke's angst about his wife's recent death. Banville is a formidable stylist ("There was none of summer's languorous vibrancy, only a great pale-blue stillness," he writes of autumn's arrival in a small town), but none of the novel's domestic drama is particularly gripping, and the solution to the mystery is both underwhelming and too tangled in series lore. It's a case of atmosphere over action that's unlikely to satisfy most mystery fans. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (Oct.)

Irish author Banville brings back characters he originally wrote about under the name Benjamin Black. Banville's latest 1950s-set crime novel opens with Denton Wymes, a recluse who lives in a caravan in rural Ireland with his dog, stumbling upon an unusual sight: a Mercedes SL idling in a field, its headlamps on and no driver in sight. A man named Armitage accosts Wymes, saying that his wife, who had been driving the car, has gone missing and may have "drowned herself." Wymes is suspicious of Armitage, whose affect seems off: "It seemed a piece of bad acting, but then, Wymes told himself, that's mostly how people behave when there's a crisis and they're distraught." DI St John Strafford arrives from Dublin to investigate, quickly sussing out that nothing about the case will be straightforward--Armitage is slippery and unpredictable, Wymes is a convicted child molester, and something seems amiss about the couple whose rental house Armitage and Wymes went to for help. Meanwhile, Strafford has his own problems: His separated wife wants a divorce, and his lover--who happens to be the daughter of his pathologist colleague, Quirke--is pregnant. And when two bodies are discovered, he is faced with an increasing sense of urgency. Strafford and Quirke return as characters from Banville's previous crime novels, and Armitage played a large role in his most recent book,The Lock-Up (2023). These are compelling people: Strafford with his emotional unavailability ("The fact was, he did not understand himself, or Phoebe, or anyone. The vagaries of the human heart baffled him") and Quirke with his brooding depression ("He stayed away from people as much as possible. This was a loneliness company couldn't cure"). As for the mystery at the heart of the book: Banville remains a master of suspense; it's not easy to stop turning the pages until the novel's genuinely surprising end. This is yet another fine thriller from an author at the top of his game. Excellent writing and a clever plot make this one stand out. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.