Christine Falls by Benjamin Black

It's not the dead that seem strange to Quirke. It's the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpse-and concealing the cause of death.

It turns out the body belonged to a young woman named Christine Falls. And as Quirke reluctantly presses on toward the true facts behind her death, he comes up against some insidious-and very well guarded-secrets of Dublin's high Catholic society, among them members of his own family.

Set in Dublin and Boston in the 1950s, the first novel in the Quirke series brings all the vividness and psychological insight of Booker Prize winner John Banville's fiction to a thrilling, atmospheric crime story. Quirke is a fascinating and subtly drawn hero, Christine Falls is a classic tale of suspense, and Benjamin Black's debut marks him as a true master of the form.

Praise for Christine Falls by Benjamin Black

A New York Times Editor's Choice
The Village Voice's Top 20 Books of 2007
Seatle Times Best Crime Fiction of 2007
Finalist for 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize



"A page-turner told in prose so beautiful you'll want to read some passages repeatedly. Intricately plotted, beautifully written."

- The Boston Globe

"Measured, taut, and transfixing . . . Benjamin Black's plotting is methodical, detailed, and always gripping. You can smell the smoke in Quirke's favorite pub and touch the cool walls in a Boston convent he later visits."

- USA Today

"Swirling, elegant noir . . . Crossover fiction of a very high order . . . Rolls forward with haunting, sultry exoticism . . . toward the best kind of denouement under these circumstances: a half inconclusive one."

- The New York Times

"Offers a subtler, deeper satisfaction than just finding out whodunit. . . . What's most disconcerting of all about Christine Falls is the atmosphere of moral claustrophobia enveloping it."

- The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A dark, ambitious crime novel . . . It’s going to make more than a few readers flip the book over to look at the author photo to make sure Banville’s really pulling the strings."

- Newsday

"Crime fiction rarely lives up to the term 'literary,' but [Christine Falls] is the happy exception."

- Entertainment Weekly

Christine Falls by Benjamin Black
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ISBN: 0-312-42632-1

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