The recent Quirke novels by John Banville have, for the most part, left this reader unsatisfied. For such an accomplished author (The Untouchable is a 20th century classic!), these "left-handed" efforts seem sluggish, repetitive, and peppered with uninteresting dialogue. As always, Banville's description powers are inimitable, but there are throughout this series an endless number of bar-room scenes and a 1,001 ways to describe smoking a cigarette. The sheer joy of languages, as well as the playful antics represented by his latest novel, The Singularities, is not to be found here. For readers new to Banville, the best first books are The Untouchable and The Book of Evidence.

My only complaint about the Lock-Up is that it was too short and the end, though unexpected, came too quickly. Dr. Quirke, still grieving for his wife is embroiled in the inexplicable death of a young woman. Initially thought of as a suicide he determines that this was a murder. Coincidences abound with ties to Nazis and the government of Israel. Detective Hackett finds himself embroiled in difficulties and Quirke in his usual fashion drinks too much and becomes sentimentally involved with the sister of the victim. His daughter Phoebe plays a role as does Strafford , the detective who shot Evelyn's killer. Banville is a marvelous writer and this book does not disappoint !

In The Lock-Up, the 11th entry in his series of Dublin-based mysteries, John Banville serves up an intriguing demise: the apparent suicide of a young woman in a closed garage, her motorcar purring away. Banville’s customary protagonist, the alcoholic forensic pathologist tagged only as “Dr. Quirke,” pegs Rosa Jacobs’ death as staged, a killer’s attempt to mask a murder.

In a typical series mystery, the protagonist’s inspired insight, regularly compounded like interest, drives splendidly on to the final reveal. Not so here: Quirke’s offhand éclat is the sole one Banville allows him. For Quirke and his unwelcome sidekick, Detective Inspector St. John Strafford (the central figure in 2020’s Snow), the urgency of puzzling out the who and the why behind Jacobs’ death slips away even as the hunt is heating up. Instead, the personal entanglements her homicide spawns — and the dismaying political truths it exposes — glide in like a fog bank, nudging the murder aside and reducing the unwinding of the mystery, quite literally, to an epilogue in the voice of the killer.

This amounts to something of an anti-convention in the hoary practice of mystery series. Here, as in April in Spain (2021), the novel preceding this one in the series, Banville lets his formidable novelist’s impulses take the wheel. He seems more interested in creating a resonant social commentary than in plotting out a suspenseful whodunit.

His setting for this series — the first eight volumes of which were released under the pseudonym Benjamin Black — is Ireland in the mid-1950s. The most recent three, issued under his real name (a giveaway in its own right), flaunt this new upscale wrinkle, with Banville, the Booker Prize laureate, tossing familiar genre tropes overboard.

The happy result, especially in The Lock-Up, is a marvelous hybrid resplendent with silken prose and incisive glimpses of Irish upper-middle-class life and its muddy liaisons. The rift between Quirke and Strafford is one; the Catholic pathologist blames the Protestant detective, unfairly, for his psychiatrist wife’s recent death, recounted in April in Spain. (A bystander, she’s killed in a dying volley from an assailant whom Strafford has just shot.)

Another snag is the romance between Strafford and Quirke’s daughter, Phoebe, which propels Quirke to a drunken assault on the detective:

“They heard the clatter of feet on the stairs and suddenly Quirke was there, his face flushed and his mouth working.

“‘Listen, Strafford, listen to me,’ he said in a congested voice, ‘you stay away from here, stay away from my daughter. You’ve done enough damage to my family —’

“‘Doctor Quirke,’ Strafford said, holding up both hands, ‘this is not the time for —’

“Suddenly, Quirke launched himself at the younger man, his right fist drawn back. Phoebe darted forward, stopping him short.”

Quirke himself — though still reeling from his wife’s passing — is not above temptation, drifting into his own liaison with the murder victim’s older sister Molly.

There’s religion, too. As in all matters Irish, it lies dead center in the larger postwar complications here, kindling the two investigators’ interest in the Jewish Rosa’s relationship with a refugee German industrialist. The Church establishment, suspiciously, is intent on protecting the expat from scandal, leading to a brilliantly rendered scene in which Bishop “Tommy” McAvoy, affably antisemitic, leans on Strafford’s boss to drop the investigation. The two, once school chums, get together at a Dublin hotel lounge:

“The bar was crowded, and sure enough, at least half the customers were priests. A momentary hush fell when Bishop Tom entered.”

Vivid set pieces like this, trenchant moments of offhand social comedy, push the narrative — if not the core investigation — onward. For instance, Quirke parries an awkward, subliminally nasty approach by a former lover at the chichi restaurant to which he’s brought Molly Jacobs. And the circumstances of Strafford’s estrangement from his own spouse bubble up insistently. “One day, Strafford’s wife had gone to visit her mother and had not come back,” Banville writes. “Nor would she, it seemed, given the considerable length of time she had been away.”

The investigation sputters on, distractedly frenetic, yielding at every turn to the subtle touch of an artist with other aims in mind. There are confessions of guilt, concessions to the genre, but neither investigator has much of a hand in extracting either. Read this book, then reread it. It’s that rewarding.

When a young woman, Rosa Jacobs, is found dead, Quirke and Stafford determine the death was the result of murder, not suicide or accident. They meet, a former German businessman, Kestler, who is involved in business dealings in Israel, and knew Rosa. Banville is an expert at character development. Love this series.

THE LOCK-UP by John Banville
Published : 5/23/2023
Publisher: Harlequin Publishers / Hanover Square Press


Notable Irish master writer and Booker Prize Winner turns his hand to literary crime police procedural mysteries. This is a reprise of two main characters featured his two earlier novels. An unlikely duo of renown pathologist Dr. Quirke and Detective Inspector John Strafford ( A Protestant in Ireland’s predominantly Catholic police force ) Instilled into the mystery is not only divergent characters with an unusual antagonist attitude, but also the setting and place of 1950 Dublin …. which alone is worth the price of admission. The gritty streets populated by a multitude of characters of dubious motivation. Banville provides the necessary backstory to allow the reader to immediately immerse themselves into the complex dynamics of the main characters , as well as the political and religious events of the time. Quirke unrealistically holds a grudge against Strafford. On their previous case Strafford could not shoot their hunted quarry, until after his wife was fatally wounded.
They are reluctantly forced together when called to the scene of garage lock-up. A young woman named Rosa Jacobs was found dead in car … presumably a suicide by carbon monoxide. Dr Quirke quickly finds evidence implicating a probable murder, with only a staged suicide. The victim’s sister, Molly Jacobs quickly arrives from London, where she is a noted journalist. She provides information which aides the two men in their investigation. Rosa was apparently linked to a well known and wealthy German family - both father and son. The father arrived in Ireland shortly after the end of World War II, in a somewhat obscure and suspicious manner. Molly also is aware that a journalist friend of her’s was murdered in Israel. She apparently was investigating the burgeoning Israeli nuclear program. Is there a connection in these complex variables? Will the puzzle pieces come together to resolve this mystery? Even at odds with each other, the duo arduously struggle to find their answers and the truth.
John Banville provides a well written literary slow-burn mystery. As red herrings and clues mount up, intrigue and suspense slowly ratchet up to a satisfying denouement. This is not a barn burner, but an enjoyable and intriguing mystery, set in an interesting time in history, with exploration of political and religious differences of this time period.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hanover Square Press for providing an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review.

As an avid reader of all the Banville series, I was very let down by this title. Both Strafford and Quirke are in this one, and they both were quite trying. I would like to see him write a title that doesn’t have every twenty-something character wanting to jump into bed with emotionally unavailable, alcoholic middle-aged me. Very disappointed with this one.

Setting is shortly after WW2 with the birth of Israel as a nation and Irish independence.One of my favorite fictional characters , the pathologist Quirke,features prominently in the novel.
Mystery, cultural critique, historical fiction-this is Banville at his best- skewering the Catholic church, Irish politics, and bigotry, in addition to insights about love, loss, and relationships.
I loved it-I must confess that I love everything he’s written.

There is no question that John Banvile is an excellent writer. His Quirke mysteries are of very high quality. This latest addition picks up after Quirke's wife has been murdered in Spain and he is back in Dublin and living with his daughter. Hackett has called him in as it appears a young woman has committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. Quirke concludes it iy as the mystery unfolds.s indeed a murder. Nazis and Israel figure heavily as the mystery unfolds and bodies mount up.

Continuation of the DR. Quirke mysteries. Quirke is suffering from the death of his wife but becomes involved with the murder of a youngJewish woman,.
There are very insightful portrayals of the religious scene in Ireland as well as the social hierarchy.
This book is beautifully and poetically written. It does not distract from the evilness that is uncovered but enhances it.
One of the best books I've read this year!

Quirke is back in his best mystery yet. Still recovering from the events in the previous novel, Quirke is teamed once again with St John Strafford, and they make for an appealing team. John Banville does an excellent job of further developing the working relationship between these two characters, as well as writing about Quirke dealing with grief for his late wife, as well as continuing his relationship with his daughter, Phoebe.
The story is secondary to these great characters (not a knock at all). Banville's prose is almost poetic in its beauty.
The Lock-Up is another marvelous story from a master at the height of his talents!

Would be used in the classroom to teach character development, tone, and mood.