The Silver Swan

Starred review from January 7, 2008
In this stunning follow-up to 2007’s Christine Falls
, Black (pseudonym of Booker Prize–winner John Banville) spins a complex tale of murder and deception in 1950s Ireland. Pathologist Garret Quirke, surprised by a visit from a college acquaintance, Billy Hunt, is even more surprised when Billy begs Quirke not to perform an autopsy on his wife, Deirdre, whose naked body was recently retrieved from Dublin Bay. Though everything points to suicide, Quirke knows something’s amiss and begins to retrace Deirdre’s steps. Black expertly balances Quirke’s investigation with chapters detailing Deidre’s past, from her marriage to Billy to her shady business deal with Leslie White, an enigmatic Englishman who knew Deidre as Laura Swan, the proprietress of their joint venture, a beauty salon called the Silver Swan. As Quirke digs deeper, he discovers a web of lies and blackmail that threatens to envelop even his own estranged daughter, Phoebe. Laconic, stubborn Quirke makes an appealing hero as the pieces of this unsettling crime come together in a shocking conclusion. Author tour.

Starred review from April 28, 2008
Black is better known as the Booker Prize–winning author John Banville. Timothy Dalton is better known as the guy who used to play James Bond. Their collaboration on this mystery novel, the second in Black's Quirke series, offers an excellent opportunity for Dalton to flash his acting chops. Dalton's reading is hushed, intense and dramatic, read as if being performed onstage. This risky approach ends up melding perfectly with Black's atmospheric whodunit, with Dalton underscoring the literary quality of the prose. Dalton drops to a whisper nearly every other sentence, but it is the kind of whisper that penetrates the eardrums of even the duffers in the back row of the theater. The acted approach—Dalton playing every role, embodying every voice—is not always perfect, but the partnership between author and narrator is a definite success. Simultaneous release with the Henry Holt hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 7).

May 1, 2008
Black, the pen name of Man Booker Prize-winning author John Banville ("The Sea"), is a fine writer, but, as so often happens when a "straight" author turns to writing genre fiction, this book (following "Christine Falls") is just not one of his best. The wife of an old acquaintance has been found dead, and Irish pathologist Garrett Quirke wants to know what really happened. Not much of a mystery (the murderer, while not explicitly revealed, is quite obvious from the beginning), "Silver Swan" is mostly devoted to exploring the lives and thoughts of people before and after a murder. Unfortunately, despite some very beautiful writing, most of the characters seem one-dimensional, sometimes irritatingly so. As an audiobook this title suffers from another, more unusual problem: Timothy Dalton reads with a gentle, attractive, singsong inflection but also rather quickly, and American listeners may have difficulty understanding some sentences. Recommended for large public libraries.I. Pour-El, Des Moines Area Community Coll., Boone, IA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 4, 2008
Black, the pen name of Booker Prize-winning author John Banville (The Sea), second atmospheric crime novel starring Quirke, a 1950s Dublin pathologist and unlikely hero. This novel opens with the death of a young woman, the owner of a seemingly successful beauty salon called the Silver Swan. Her body is found in the river, her clothing neatly folded at the edge of the water. The distraught husband, not wanting his beautiful wife's body harmed, asks Quirke to bypass the standard postmortem. Upon examining it, Quirke quickly notices a puncture mark visible on the dead woman's arm. And so Quirke's descent into darkness begins. Black/Banville is a master of atmosphere; the fear and dread associated with hidden desires and deeds fairly leap off the page. Highly recommended for all public libraries. LJ 2/1/08