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Elegy for April (Quirke #3)

3.5 of 5 stars 3.50 · rating details · 806 ratings · 184 reviews

Quirke—the hard-drinking, insatiably curious Dublin pathologist—is back, and he's determined to find his daughter's best friend, a well-connected young doctor

April Latimer has vanished. A junior doctor at a local hospital, she is something of a scandal in the conservative and highly patriarchal society of 1950s Dublin. Though her family is one of the most respected in the

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Hardcover, 304 pages

Published April 13th 2010 by Henry Holt and Co. (first published January 1st 2010)

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Nov 19, 2012 Fionnuala rated it 3 of 5 stars

Another Quirke and Hackett investigation and at this stage the charm is wearing off.
How many more women can possibly fall into Quirke’s hapless arms?
How many more descriptions of someone smoking or staring into the bottom of a whiskey glass can I take?
How many repetitions of scenes in pubs, restaurants, dreary flats are possible without the author quoting himself unconsciously? Already I’ve caught Black repeating a description and then passing it off as a character’s ‘recollection’ of an earl...more

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Feb 25, 2013 Sally Duns rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading Benjamin Black is like reading beautifully crafted poetry. It is not so much a crime novel, although a crime does get solved, but an exploration of enigmatic characters, awkwardly intimate relationships and foggily shrouded secrets. It is set in a dense, unforgiving Dublin winter. Phoebe is worried about the absence of her friend April and asks her father for help. She gradually comes to realise how little she knew her friends and how much is hidden behind staged fronts. It is a recurrin...more

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Nov 11, 2012 Wordsmith rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Noir

Shelves: award-winning-book-or-author, part-of-series, police-procedural, thriller-intrigue, region-specific, ireland, star-four, family-dysfunction, father-n-child, lit-british, mystery, noir, ranking-2012-reads-processing, have-reviewed

Years ago I read "Christine Falls," an intriguing rather gothish, noir mystery by an author (pen) named Benjamin Black. It was good enough to have remained RAM-ready for recall in the intervening years, whereas, say, when I (re)purchased the book "Crimson Petal and The White" it was not until page 400 or so did I get that first flicker of recognition. Sadly, even Annie Proulx's Pulitzer masterpiece had mind-floated away from me into that frigid, churning sea until Qouyle finally dawned on me 2 o...more Years ago I read "Christine Falls," an intriguing rather gothish, noir mystery by an author (pen) named Benjamin Black. It was good enough to have remained RAM-ready for recall in the intervening years, whereas, say, when I (re)purchased the book "Crimson Petal and The White" it was not until page 400 or so did I get that first flicker of recognition. Sadly, even Annie Proulx's Pulitzer masterpiece had mind-floated away from me into that frigid, churning sea until Qouyle finally dawned on me 2 or 3 chapters in. I read too much, apparently, in the early '90s ; )

Black has certainly mastered the art of crafting noir, which does require a certain ambience, a mood and a nod to time, place and characterization. Black isn't Black, just so you know. He is John Banville, who wrote "The Sea," which won The Booker Prize. That too was a superbly crafted piece of work. Nothing like this series though. Apparently this is a trio although I haven't read the one in the middle, "The Silver Swan." The books do stand alone but Quirke, Dr. Quirke that is, along with his daughter Phoebe make more than a few passing references to the traumatic experiences that ostensibly happened between Book 1 and Book 2. So I suppose that one will be coming up soon for me.

Dr. Quirke is a pathologist with a drinking problem who seems to find himself enmeshed in matters of intrigue better left to Scotland Yard. In "Elegy For April" there are as many Doctors involved in the storyline as there are Detectives, with a few femme fatales thrown in. It's not noir without your well-corseted, sultry, beauty, exhaling her cigarette smoke with a certain flair, a savior faire that is long dead and her kind is not to be found in any other genre. She drinks her scotch neat and thinks hard about staying the night when the circumstances invariably arise. More often than not he's watching her scarf flutter in the wind as she flys round the bend, going 50 in her Roadster, past the flickering light at the corner, leaving him gazing at the dark trees looming ominously like a portent of bad things to come.

April is a friend of Phoebe. She is missing. Or is she? She is an up and coming young Doctor, related to a wealthy, prominent family whose lives are immersed in Medicine and Politics. By all appearances their good name and social standing are far more important than solving the mystery of what might have happened to their daughter, their niece, their granddaughter. Phoebe and April are part of a larger circle comprised mostly of young Doctors, medical students, a journalist and a rather famous young actress. They are split on the issue if anything untoward has occurred at all. April has a reputation for indiscretion. But the deeper Quirke, and his old pal Inspector Hackett dig into the mystery surrounding April Latimer's last days before she disappeared, the more they are convinced someone is going to great lengths to cover-up a terrible crime. Long before DNA and CSI this one will have to be solved the old fashioned way—with intelligence. (less)

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Aug 19, 2012 Larraine rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've been catching up with Benjamin Black aka John Banville. This is the third in his series featuring Quirke, a brilliant, dark pathologist who fights alcoholism - mostly unsuccessfully - and is trying to be a father to his daughter - pretty much also mostly unsuccessfully. The novel opens with Quirke finishing up a stint at a grim clinic run by the Christian Brothers. He's dried out - at least temporarily - but the need for a drink is never far away. It is the depths of winter in Dublin. On Ch...more I've been catching up with Benjamin Black aka John Banville. This is the third in his series featuring Quirke, a brilliant, dark pathologist who fights alcoholism - mostly unsuccessfully - and is trying to be a father to his daughter - pretty much also mostly unsuccessfully. The novel opens with Quirke finishing up a stint at a grim clinic run by the Christian Brothers. He's dried out - at least temporarily - but the need for a drink is never far away. It is the depths of winter in Dublin. On Christmas Eve of the previous year, he took a taxi and signed himself into the clinic after a series of deadly drinking bouts in which he has forgotten things that have happened. The series takes place in 1950's Dublin. It is the post war period, and Ireland is just climbing out of bad economic times. Mostly though it is winter - not the sparkling, snow filled winter of film, but the normal winter of that part of the world: thick fog and long, cold, hard, unrelenting rain. His daughter, Phoebe, makes regular visits. She is dreading this one, but it is important for her to go because she needs to talk to him about a missing friend. She is a part of a group of oddly disparate friends: Phoebe herself works at an upscale hat shop, Patrick is a surgical resident who is black and on a temporary visa from his home country in Africa, Jimmy, diminutive and quick, is a newspaper reporter, Isabelle is an actress who is "half Irish and half English" as she explains and April is also a resident doctor who may or may not been having an affair with Patrick, something both forbidden and daring in 1950's Dublin. Now April is missing, and Phoebe comes to her father looking for help. She is sure something terrible has happened to April. We soon learn that something did happen, but it takes a while for the solution to unfold. I always think of these books as akin to watching a film of a flower slowly unfold petal by petal. "Fathers and sons...fathers and daughters," one of the characters lament. This book explores the complexity of family ties. Quirke's daughter thought of herself as his niece for many years, until she learned the truth. Quirke himself came from a poor family background and was adopted by a wealthy family. He is never allowed to forget that, and his background is the cause of sneers by both those below him and those above him in society. These books are not for someone looking for action or romance. They're not an easy read. However, the language is enough to keep me coming back for more, and the language truly is wonderful. When he describes the sparkle of the mica used on the streets, I can see it sparkling and cold on a moonlit night. When he describes a character walking on a "sharp" winter's night, you can see the stars in your mind. As in the other books, nothing is what it seems and the ending is both tragic and somewhat ambiguous. Once again the reader sees the thread of anti-clericalism that seems to be a basic part of the fabric of Irish literary life. This is a book worth reading, but be prepared for the darkness within and around.

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Jul 26, 2012 Nancy Oakes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: irish-crime-fiction-and-mystery

for a single glance at the first four novels in the Quirke series, click on through to where I post my online crime fiction reviews.

We start moving into deeper, blacker territory here with Elegy for April, a trend that continues through the two novels following this one. This book also happens to be one of my favorites in the series.

The book appropriately begins in the fog, which hangs over the story throughout -- and finds Quirke at the House of St. John of the Cross, a "refuge for addicts o...more for a single glance at the first four novels in the Quirke series, click on through to where I post my online crime fiction reviews.

We start moving into deeper, blacker territory here with Elegy for April, a trend that continues through the two novels following this one. This book also happens to be one of my favorites in the series.

The book appropriately begins in the fog, which hangs over the story throughout -- and finds Quirke at the House of St. John of the Cross, a "refuge for addicts of all kinds, for shattered souls and petrifying livers," where he'd checked in after a six-month drinking binge he could barely remember. For Quirke, "stopping drinking had been easy; what was difficult was the daily, unblurred confrontation with a self he heartily wished to avoid." During his daughter Phoebe's last visit before Quirke checks himself out, she tells him that one of her friends, young Dr. April Latimer, has seemingly left without telling anyone and that she's concerned. None of their group of mutual friends have heard from April in a week. At first Quirke tells Phoebe that a week is not so long a time, but he does promise to make some calls. Phoebe, however, remains concerned, especially when she and another friend go into April's flat and find what may be blood in the bathroom. Not too long after Quirke releases himself from rehab, he, Phoebe and Hackett make their way to April's home, where they discover blood on the floorboards. They decide to go and visit April's family, but they find themselves up against the epitome of Dublin's "fiercely-Catholic" powerful, the Latimers. April's Uncle Bill is no less than the Minister of Health; her mother Celia a widow of a well-respected GPO war hero, a powerful socialite, known for her good works and for having the ear of "many at the pinnacle of power in society;" April's brother is a powerful physician known to be "concerned with keeping condoms out and maternity hospitals full." After they go to the family with their concerns, Quirke and Hackett both realize that the family is starting to distance themselves from April while simultaneously closing ranks. That doesn't mean, however, that Quirke will stand down from his enquiries.

Elegy for April is the best of the novels among the first three. Not only is the central mystery intriguing, but the fog that begins in the first chapter immediately establishes a very real sense of the claustrophobia that pervades Dublin at the time, and also conjures a murkiness that lingers through the mystery of April's disappearance. Throughout the story there are "lingering ghosts," that reflect not only the hold of the past, but the "poison of the past" as well, something Quirke knows very well. Racism is added to the ongoing list of the city's ills, Quirke may or may not have a found a girlfriend, and Phoebe is becoming more fully developed as a character. And while the post-dénouement action might seem a bit contrived, it works in a clumsy sort of way. All of that is really sort of secondary though, because in this novel, it's the literary quality of the writing and the depth to which Black dives into character psyche that stand out above everything else. I was so taken by and wrapped up both areas that sometimes I forgot I was reading a crime novel.

Definitely recommended -- and, as with all of the Quirke novels, they should be read in order to get the most out of them.(less)

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Jun 05, 2012 Janebbooks rated it 5 of 5 stars

A splash of Jameson in a cut-glass tumbler..., June 5, 2010

A review of a Amazon review for: Elegy for April: A Novel by Benjamin Black

To the reviewer who found the book DEAR AND DIRTY...BUT DRAB, I disagree. The prose, atmosphere and characterizations were so literate and fascinating. The best Quirke yet!

Banville/Blackman knows his main subject well---1950's Dublin. And he has his characters walking the streets of this quaint city in a country that inspired several Nobel Laureates before Templ...more

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Feb 02, 2012 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Quirke, if not at his best, is at his most intriguing
Benjamin Black’s third crime thriller involving Dublin pathologist Garret Quirke “Elegy for April,” like the other novels in the series, ultimately is about love or to be more apt, the perversity of love. In “Elegy for April” love is obsessive in the extreme —and taboo.

Its theme, its time period and its inverted morality all have much in common with the noir classic “Chinatown.” In Quirke’s 1050s Dublin, as in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, nothing i...more Quirke, if not at his best, is at his most intriguing
Benjamin Black’s third crime thriller involving Dublin pathologist Garret Quirke “Elegy for April,” like the other novels in the series, ultimately is about love or to be more apt, the perversity of love. In “Elegy for April” love is obsessive in the extreme —and taboo.

Its theme, its time period and its inverted morality all have much in common with the noir classic “Chinatown.” In Quirke’s 1050s Dublin, as in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, nothing is quite as it seems and as one of the novel’s main characters says, the unforeseen becomes simply another of “the things that happen, eh?”

Black takes us into a noir world almost without sun. Dublin’s winter days are dark and “rain-smeared.” When it isn’t raining or snowing a mist covers the city and penetrates hallways and rooms like “ectoplasm.”

April Latimer, a friend of Phoebe Griffin, Quirke’s daughter, has gone missing and Quirke’s curiosity and his need to discover the truth leads him to ask questions, as it always does. And as usual, his questioning takes him to places and people better left alone, the Roman Catholic oligarchy, for instance, or in this case Dublin’s elite and powerful.

April, a doctor in training at the hospital where Quirke is the pathologist, is a one of the Dublin Latimers and one of a circle of friends that in addition to Phoebe includes a flamboyant stage actress, a Nigerian medical student and a bird-like snooping newspaper reporter. Family and friends all have an interest in April’s whereabouts and all may or may not have a connection to her apparent disappearance.

Quirke has recently left St. John of the Cross, a refuge for “shattered souls and petrifying livers,” where he had admitted himself on Christmas Eve seeking a cure for his alcohol dependence.

His life, he feels is without “savor” and he is burdened with his sins and sorrows. Phoebe observes that entering any room, Quirke always heads for the window, always looking mentally and physically for a way out.

His way out after leaving St. John’s is to buy a car, a small, gleaming and extremely expensive Alvis roadster. Only then does he learn to drive and with Quirke behind the wheel, the new Alvis becomes a fixture in his life and in the story as he weaves wildly through Dublin, driving to new clues while dodging bicyclists, horses and pedestrians unfortunate enough to step off the curb.

If this isn’t the best of the Quirke crime stories, it’s the most intriguing even if we never meet the missing woman. April Latimer and her circumstances are as mysterious as those of Christine Falls, the title character in the previous Quirke story, whom we know only as a corpse. The novel is best at portraying life in the dark and dreary Dublin where the sun only manages to attempt to shine, “its weak glow making a sallow, ruinous stain on the fog.” The story won’t keep you up at night turning pages. But the book is worth your appreciation for being vivid in its imagery and imagination.
[give it 4.5 stars]

This book is the third of four in the Quirke series. They should be read in order to get the full effect of Quirke's back-story. Here are the four titles: Christine Falls (2006), The Silver Swan (2007), Elegy for April (2010) and A Death in Summer (July 2011).

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Oct 28, 2010 Christin rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read all of Black's novels in a spree over fall break, and I must say I was disappointed. The Black pseudonym seems to be an excuse for John Banville to write obsessively about rape, murder, and abortion (except The Lemur which was serialized in the NYT Magazine and is thus set in Manhattan). Are there no other options for women in Dublin in the 1950s? All of Black's novels have excellent atmosphere and really capture the spirit of the city I love, especially the lush and vivid attention dev...more

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Aug 02, 2010 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-audio-books, 2010-mysteries

Elegy for April, by Benjamin Black, AKA John Banville, a-minus, narrated by Timothy Dalton, produced by Macmillan Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

This is the 3rd in the trilogy involving Kwirk, the Scottish pathologist and the woman he came to claim as his daughter, Phoebe Griffin. Phoebe has few friends and values the ones she has very much. One of them is April. She and April talk by phone at least every day, if not in person. So, when she hadn’t heard from April for over a week, she starte...more

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Jul 27, 2010 Erin rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 16, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: july-aug-2010

If Elegy for April isn't the author's best book to date, it certainly boasts the elements for which he is known: a brooding, dark main character; a literary elegance; and, most of all, an evocation of a gloomy Dublin in which "class and religious divisions and [the city's] urgent, albeit repressed, sexual atmospheres helps his characters spring from the page" (Los Angeles Times). The only major point of contention was the plot, which a couple of critics felt was too contrived and slow. ("Mystery...more

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May 23, 2010 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the 3rd installment of Benjamin Black's (aka John Banville) moody atmospheric mystery series set in 1950s Ireland. I admit to not yet reading the first two, but had heard great buzz about them and the first (Christine Falls) was up for an Edgar. It probably would have helped a bit with background to have read them in order but it was still a very satisfying read. The main character Quirke (he goes by his last name) is a flawed character - an ME with a drinking problem and a boatload of p...more

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Apr 24, 2010 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

Black, Benjamin. ELEGY FOR APRIL. (2010). ****. This is the first ‘mystery’ by Black (pseudonym of John Banville – op. cit.), that I have read. Although the plot is pretty thin, he manages to fatten it up very well with tangential subjects so that it looks like a whole body. The premise is pretty simple: April, a friend of Phoebe – Quirke’s daughter – is used to hearing from her on almost a daily basis, and there has been no contact for over a week now. Who’s Quirke? Quirke is a doctor, a pathol...more Black, Benjamin. ELEGY FOR APRIL. (2010). ****. This is the first ‘mystery’ by Black (pseudonym of John Banville – op. cit.), that I have read. Although the plot is pretty thin, he manages to fatten it up very well with tangential subjects so that it looks like a whole body. The premise is pretty simple: April, a friend of Phoebe – Quirke’s daughter – is used to hearing from her on almost a daily basis, and there has been no contact for over a week now. Who’s Quirke? Quirke is a doctor, a pathologist, who works at a Dublin hospital and has just come out from a drying-out session at St. Somebodys. Obviously, Quirke was introduced in an earlier novel, and is an on-going hero of sorts. He is an interesting guy. He was raised in an orphanage. After he married, his wife died giving birth to Phoebe. He gave Phoebe to his brother and his wife to raise as their own, knowing that he couldn’t do so on his own. He has a recurring problem with alcohol, but slips a lot because he doesn’t have a support group. He is essentially a loner. Phoebe has only recently discovered that he is her real father and the two are trying to bond. Phoebe and April were two friends of a group that met weekly for drinks at a local pub in Dublin. April was a nurse at the same hospital that Quirke worked at, but he didn’t know her. The other friends included a young cub reporter, a more sophisticated girl actress, and a Nigerian medical student. All of them were worried about April and her whereabouts. The quest is on. Quirke calls in a friend of his from the Guarda who finds traces of blood in April’s bedroom, and the situation now turns dour. When Quirke meets up with April’s family, he discovers that they have long disowned April, and want nothing to do with her – missing or not. they have too much of a reputation to protect. What happened to April? I can’t tell without spoiling the whole thing. What’s more important, however, is Black’s ability to round out characters and fill up the story line with a lot of the problems that still face Ireland today. Recommended.(less)

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Apr 20, 2010 Stephanie D. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Elegy for April by Benjamin Black is a literary mystery about a young woman's disappearance in 1950s Dublin and how it affects all those who know her - or think they know her. Phoebe Griffin is at first concerned when she doesn't hear from her best friend, April Latimer, for a week. As the days pass with no one claiming to know April's whereabouts, Phoebe begins digging and finds out that she doesn't know April or those close to her, as well as she once believed. Even those she considers friends...more Elegy for April by Benjamin Black is a literary mystery about a young woman's disappearance in 1950s Dublin and how it affects all those who know her - or think they know her. Phoebe Griffin is at first concerned when she doesn't hear from her best friend, April Latimer, for a week. As the days pass with no one claiming to know April's whereabouts, Phoebe begins digging and finds out that she doesn't know April or those close to her, as well as she once believed. Even those she considers friends now seem to harbor less than innocent motives - what is everyone hiding?

Overwhelmed and fearing the worst, Phoebe turns to her semi-estranged pathologist father, Quirke, and his friend, Inspector Hackett. Together, they uncover what befell the doomed April, a fate which involves a rich and powerful family who will do anything to cover up scandal, the stranglehold of obsession, and poisonous secrets.

"The thing about obsession," she said..."is that there's no pleasure in it. You think at the start, if there is a start, that it's the greatest delight you could know"--that word, delight, the way she said it, had struck Phoebe as disturbing, almost indecent-"but after a while when you're caught in it and can't get out, it's a prison cell...."

Phoebe had not know what to say, how to respond. She did not think of April as a person who would be obsessed---there was another dark and troubling word---and she felt as if a curtain had been flicked aside for a moment to allow her a glimpse down a long, dim passageway murmurous with unseen presences, where the air that pressed back into her face was dank and sweetly heavy. She remembered the shudder that had gone through her, glimpsing that dark place, even as she sat there...in the bright sunlight, amidst that summer scene.

With the buildup of uneasy dread, the plot genuinely kept me guessing until the very end. Also, unlike many thrillers that seem to have stock caricatures, Elegy for April has finely drawn characters, as Black knows how to sketch the telling details of a character that show dimension and complexity. I like that Quirke is a very flawed and damaged man who despite the twin demons of his past and alcoholism, is still trying to muddle through life as best he can. He wants to be a father to the child he once gave up, Phoebe, and it is for her that he tries to solve the mystery of April's disappearance. Besides the enigma of the missing April - I became really invested in Quirke's plight as he struggles to stay on the wagon with less than spectacular results.

Black's setting of 1950s Dublin is also another fascinating study, wherein class is accorded obscene privilege and racial prejudice is rampant. The world in which April disappears at first seems slightly glamorous, but slowly becomes more and more sinister as Black reveals the ugliness and fear underneath the facade.

Elegy for April has skillful characterization and depiction of this particular era and mindset, as well as a mastery of prose - Black has some unique turns of phrases that lingered with me - and a carefully laid plot; however *** potential spoiler alert *** the resolution scene with the villain towards the end seemed slightly off, without the elegance of the rest of Elegy. Notwithstanding this clumsy scene, I could not turn the pages fast enough so I too could discover what happened to April Latimer.(less)

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Apr 18, 2010 Tonya Jarrett rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wondered after I read this novel, which while atmospherically lovely, was somewhat lacking in character development, if it assumed previous knowledge of the protagonist, Quirke, a middle-aged pathologist/alcoholic in 50s Dublin, trying to dry out, but failing, and sometimes failing miserably. He appears in previous novels by the author but I found him a hard character to get to know just on the basis of Elegy for April.

Quirke is assisting his biological daughter, Phoebe, by looking into the mysterious disappearance of a friend, who may or may not have met with foul play. The two have some deep issues, not the least of which is abandonment, so much of his motive for doing some detective work is based on wanting to please her.

April Latimer, Jr. M.D. in training at the local hospital, appears to be as much of a mystery to her friends as her disappearance is. We are only shown very little glimpses of her, in conversations between friends and between Quirke and other characters. Revelations about April emerge more to the end of the book, but I felt a little cheated by that. If there is a character which is the center of a mystery, shouldn't you care more about what has happened to them? The most you find out about before the big reveals, is that her family thinks she's a troublemaker and have basically disowned her. But no concrete examples of her black sheep status are ever illuminated, beyond April being selfish and does what she wants to do.

On the other hand, Author Black does a fine job drawing you in to the daily rhythm of this city, and painting some lovely word pictures of rain, ice, bleak mountainsides, and other landscapes, which in some way reflect the reticence of characters I would have liked to know more about. For instance, why is Phoebe so attracted to Patrick Ojukwu, the young black Nigerian also studying to become an M.D., along with April? Yes, physical differences can attract, be exotic, but while her awkwardness in his presence was nicely written, I felt I wasn't quite getting the whole picture.

A couple of characters feel stock; the diminutive reporter using friendship to scoop stories, the bohemian actress affecting icy allure as part of her craft, but Black for the most part gives us an interesting cast of characters, particularly Inspector Hackett, the most well-drawn of the major players, besides Quirke. The novel is definitely worth a read, but you may well hunger for more, whatever that more is to you.

After a few days of reflection having finished reading the novel, still unsettled remembering the ending as being jarring in its intensity and subject matter. Jarring because we're being shown something horrible and being asked, "There, see? See what April endured? Now you can care about her." And up to that point, I hadn't really known enough to feel the concern others in the story did, so in essence it is asking quite a lot of a reader to suddenly care when that ending hadn't been set up at all in the beginning or middle sections of the novel. Still, The novel is definitely worth a read, but you may well hunger for more, whatever that more is to you.

I found Quirke intriguing enough that I want to investigate Black's other works featuring him.(less)

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Apr 17, 2010 Gail Cooke rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Perhaps best known to American audiences for his portrayals of James Bond in The Living Daylights and License to Kill, Timothy Dalton is a classically trained Shakespearean actor blessed with a resonant, deep voice. His enunciation is, of course, beyond perfection as are the nuances he brings to his audio performance. Now, give him a Dublin based story to narrate and you believe you've been transported to Ireland. As in Christine Falls Dalton delivers one more award worthy reading.

The third Quir...more

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Apr 17, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

As always Black/John Banville delivers the goods with this gritty noir set across the pond. A recurring theme of the despair and corruption that comprises the settings of either extreme wealth and poverty is again ominipresent in this novel. Our antihero Quirke is once again upending the quiet little lives of desperation by asking questions in all the wrong places and of all the wrong people. If you like your mystery fiction steeped in the guilt and shame of catholic morality tales with a hefty...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Linda rated it 2 of 5 stars

Now that I've read this book, I'm amazed at the hype it got. Not only did I find the characters very two-dimensional, but the plot also was thin. And the ending was an "oh, come ON!" for me.

April Latimer, a junior doctor, is missing. Her friend Phoebe hasn't heard from her in several days, even though they usually talked on the phone at least once a day. (It is never explained why Phoebe and April are close enough to warrant so much communication.) Phoebe gets her (and April's) group of friends...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Ian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Anything John Banville writes is worth our attention and Elegy for April, the fourth novel published under the pen name Benjamin Black, satisfies on many levels. Ostensibly a who-done-it, the book features a cast of indelibly drawn characters led by troubled pathologist Garret Quirke, who at the behest of his daughter Phoebe reluctantly pokes his nose into a young woman's suspicious disappearance in 1950s Dublin. The mystery is absorbing, but Banville's novel is also about friendship and family...more

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Jun 12, 2011 Ted rated it 3 of 5 stars

The third book in the Dr. Quirke series starts where the last one (The SIlver Swan) ends. Quirke is drying out and his daughter Phoebe has fallen into another mystery that daddy will help her solve. Another friend has gone missing and Phoebe's Irish "spider senses" are tingling again. A love triangle involving a prominent family, an African medical student and an incestuous uncle ensues.

While I enjoyed the story and the quick way the pieces resolve, I wanted more of Phoebe the person and less o...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Kelsey Burnette rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not quite a four-star rating, but an enjoyable read. I'll definitely read books 1 and 2 with Quirke as the main character. Maybe I would've enjoyed this one more if I hadn't read it out of order.

The thing I loved most was how Quirke's character is developed in comparison with everyone and everything else in this book. Even the car he purchases is an important character throughout the book. My favorite description: "the thing resisted him, maintaining what seemed to him a sullen obstinacy. Only o...more

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Nov 11, 2011 Criticalmick rated it 2 of 5 stars

More Elvis - Less Alvis

Shouldn't a mystery novel about a pathologist show a bit of cutting? Maybe a medical clue? Quirke plods through a 1950's Dublin February portraying a drunk who is trying not-so-very-hard to stay dried out. The other characters treat him like he is a detective. He is even summoned to meetings with a government minister who tells him to get off the case of a missing medical student. Why? It never struck me that Quirke had gotten any investigation into gear.

Speaking of gears...more More Elvis - Less Alvis

Shouldn't a mystery novel about a pathologist show a bit of cutting? Maybe a medical clue? Quirke plods through a 1950's Dublin February portraying a drunk who is trying not-so-very-hard to stay dried out. The other characters treat him like he is a detective. He is even summoned to meetings with a government minister who tells him to get off the case of a missing medical student. Why? It never struck me that Quirke had gotten any investigation into gear.

Speaking of gears: Quirke buys a very exclusive, very expensive English sportscar called an Alvis. The running joke is that he is a very poor driver. Amusing, original? Cough, sputter! Crash.

The same can be said of the plot. The baddie is obvious and the origin of his badness is bog-standard.

The real focus of Elegy for April is the setting of Dublin in its most repressed days. Everyone smokes, the weather is bad, people wear hats. An interesting part of Benjamin Black's 1950's: the heroes of the 1916 Rising are still very much alive, in influence if not in fact. Also: one character is the only African man in Dublin. There is some fresh material there, but its approach is deliberately distorted. Ordinary items are overdescribed in unsettling terms. This is a dramatization of Dublin on degraded black-and-white film where every frame is dim, and shot through a fisheye lens. There's no color, no fusion: nothing I'd really like to maintain from Quirke's era into our present one.

Unfortunately, here Quirke is. The BBC has commissioned a series. They will probably wheel out Brendan Gleeson in the title role: he's fantastic in every Irish crime flick. Reading Christine Falls and Elegy for April, though, I kept picturing the main character as cape-wearing, sour old Banville himself. (Except that Quirke doesn't go around exclaiming, in the third person, his own genius).

I hope they cast well Miss Isobel Galloway- the hot young redhead who Black/Banville wrote in as Quirke's totty. Crime novels never feel complete without a naked gingernut, though she alone cannot be enough to rate this tale of toads, bulls, and processed cheese sandwiches higher than two stars.

Critical Mick says: This is not the brilliant Irish crime fiction you are looking for. Move along! Move along!(less)

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Mar 06, 2010 Kasa Cotugno rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: vine, genre-crime-thriller, location-europe-ireland

Wintery Dublin in the mid 50's -- atmospheric,foggy, rainswept, a perfect setting for John Banville's third outing as Benjamin Black. He has said that his two writing selves write in completely different styles, but it it obvious that there is more than the usual talent on tap. Alter egos still arise from the same source. He also admitted that his role model is George Simenon -- shorter sentences, generating a faster pace. There is still a deliberation in the way he paces his story, releasing in...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Rick rated it 3 of 5 stars

Elegy for April is the third in a series of mystery novels set in post war Dublin and featuring a troubled alcholic medical examiner named Quirke. The books are written by Benjamin Black a nom de plume for the distinguished Irish novelist John Banville. I have read several of Banville's novels and they are really excellent. In a way he is slumming it a bit with these Quirke novels however while the books are about figuring out who or more generally what was done there is a lot more gonig on. The...more

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May 29, 2012 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

I should have started this series in order. . . this is actually the middle book of five. Set in 1950's Ireland, this chronicles the alcoholic Quirke,and his tangled web of relationships. He's a medical examiner, trying to help his daughter locate her missing friend.

The mystery part of this isn't that great - it's just a missing person, and the outcome isn't really that shocking. But as a character study it's a really great book, and an interesting cultural look at Ireland. Initially Banville st...more

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Nov 06, 2010 Marleen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

No. 3 Quirke Mystery

These are dark stories, set in Dublin in the 1950's. Every character in the book seems troubled and happiness seems a illusion in this world.
Phoebe, Quirke's daughter is worried about April, a friend of hers who's gone missing. When she askes Quirke, who has just signed himself out of a drying out institution for help he reluctantly starts asking questions. He soon finds himself coming up to a roadblock in the form of April's influential family who don't appear to be worried...more

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Jun 26, 2010 Doug Beatty rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

April Latimer has disappeared. Her friend, Phoebe is concerned, though trying not to fear the worst. But as days go by, Phoebe becomes more distraught and goes to her father, whom she calls Quirk.

This is the third in the series featuring the Irish pathologist Quirk, and he is still having problems with drink and women. He has a bit if a strained relationship with his daughter Phoebe, and to get the entire story on that relationship you will need to start with the first in the series, Christine ...more

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May 06, 2010 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Crime fiction has no shortage of brooding crime-solvers, and it’s usually their vices and complications that make them so memorable. In Benjamin Black’s new novel, Elegy for April, the “facilitator” is Dr. Quirke, a pathologist who doesn’t investigate crimes as much as he observes the key players and encourages them to talk and communicate until the mystery is revealed. His perception and the way he moves people is the key to the solution, rather than typical detective techniques. Dr. Quirke is...more Crime fiction has no shortage of brooding crime-solvers, and it’s usually their vices and complications that make them so memorable. In Benjamin Black’s new novel, Elegy for April, the “facilitator” is Dr. Quirke, a pathologist who doesn’t investigate crimes as much as he observes the key players and encourages them to talk and communicate until the mystery is revealed. His perception and the way he moves people is the key to the solution, rather than typical detective techniques. Dr. Quirke is one of the most memorable characters I’ve run across lately, and this novel is an engaging read that constantly offers surprises and complications.

The biggest surprise to me is that it is not politically correct: Quirke is a raging alcoholic and the book begins with him leaving his treatment center, and he manages a few hours of sobriety. His drinking is stupendous, with blackouts and all, and yet the author doesn’t try and preach anything from it nor romanticize it. It’s a refreshing change that makes Quirke’s character that much more sympathetic. Other complications in his life, such as his relationship with his daughter and several women, also demonstrate conflict without resolution. He clearly doesn’t have all the answers, yet he’s able to help solve the disappearance of April with subtle questions.

Several things really struck me about this book, clearly an example of Dublin Noir. Sure, there’s rain in most of those style books, but Elegy for April features rain, sleet, mist, hoarfrost, fog, and drizzle. Black uses these weather features to illustrate twists to the plot and factors in the mystery, without ever getting cutesy or formulaic. Additionally, many scenes feature characters looking in or looking out of windows, and the symbolism of introspection and separation from the outside world is clear. This aspect of the main characters is especially telling, yet done subtly.

Lastly, the other symbolism in the story is the archetypical meanings of black and white, light and dark. Characters step into shadow, out of bright rooms, into shadowed corridors, under bright streetlights, and into gloomy booths. The contrasts between the light and dark are intertwined with the story and it creates an air of tension and suspense. Quirke himself uses the analogy of an ocean to observe:

“All around lay the surface of the ocean, seeming all that there is to see and know, in calm or tempest, while, underneath, lay a wholly other world of things, hidden, with other kinds of creatures, flashing darkly in the deeps.”

If this were ever made into a movie, I'd hope they’d film it in black and white to keep the feel and mood of it united. It’s set apart from other mysteries because much is left unresolved, as happens in real life. My only critique of it was that it ended rather abruptly after a tense buildup through the greater part of the book. I think I simply didn’t want to let go of the mood and characters. Altogether though, I enjoyed this and intend to seek out Black’s earlier books that feature Dr. Quirke.
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May 02, 2010 Margo Tanenbaum rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, thriller, 1950-s, dublin

I enjoyed this third volume in Benjamin Black's (pseudonym for author John Banville) mystery series featuring amateur sleuth/pathologist Quirke. These books are set in a very repressed Dublin of the 1950's, and the author creates a highly believable, atmospheric setting for his characters. This volume involves Quirke's daughter Phoebe, whose friend April, a doctor at the same hospital as Quirke, has disappeared. While April's estranged family seems to be completely unworried, Phoebe is convinced...more

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Jul 31, 2010 Kurt rated it 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes I enjoy reading the works of authors who seem to sweat out every word in a sentence. And end up with the most beautiful, articulate, concise, well-wrought speech they can possibly muster. This guy is one of those. I've been following the tales of Dr. Quirke from the beginning, after hearing John Banville (a.k.a. Benjamin Black) interviewed on an OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) radio program. He was telling the listeners about his excitement at having dabbled in a genre that always int...more

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About Benjamin Black

Pen name for John Banville

Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Vonnie Banville-Evans has written both a children's novel and a r...more Pen name for John Banville

Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Vonnie Banville-Evans has written both a children's novel and a reminiscence of growing up in Wexford.

Educated at a Christian Brothers' school and at St Peter's College in Wexford. Despite having intended to be a painter and an architect he did not attend university. Banville has described this as "A great mistake. I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from my family. I wanted to be free." After school he worked as a clerk at Aer Lingus which allowed him to travel at deeply-discounted rates. He took advantage of this to travel in Greece and Italy. He lived in the United States during 1968 and 1969. On his return to Ireland he became a sub-editor at the Irish Press, rising eventually to the position of chief sub-editor. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970.

After the Irish Press collapsed in 1995, he became a sub-editor at the Irish Times. He was appointed literary editor in 1998. The Irish Times, too, suffered severe financial problems, and Banville was offered the choice of taking a redundancy package or working as a features department sub-editor. He left. Banville has been a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books since 1990. In 1984, he was elected to Aosdána, but resigned in 2001, so that some other artist might be allowed to receive the cnuas.

Banville also writes under the pen name Benjamin Black. His first novel under this pen name was Christine Falls, which was followed by The Silver Swan in 2007. Banville has two adult sons with his wife, the American textile artist Janet Dunham. They met during his visit to San Francisco in 1968 where she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. Dunham described him during the writing process as being like "a murderer who's just come back from a particularly bloody killing". Banville has two daughters from his relationship with Patricia Quinn, former head of the Arts Council of Ireland.

Banville has a strong interest in vivisection and animal rights, and is often featured in Irish media speaking out against vivisection in Irish university research.

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Elegy for April (Quirke #3)

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