Quirke himself is first warned, then savagely mugged by a pair of goons. He visits Dolly, who is later found cruelly murdered. Quirke also learns that Christine Falls worked for a while in the Griffin household, as did Dolly Moran, the old woman in whose house she was living when she died. Christine Falls bled to death after giving birth. He has it brought back and finds that the cause of death on the release form - a pulmonary embolism - is incorrect. Quirke later discovers that a release form has been signed (but not by him) and the body has been sent from the hospital to the morgue. Mal is there and nearby is the body of a young woman named Christine Falls. Next we meet Quirke as he visits his office at Holy Family Hospital late one night after a going-away party (for, as it happens, the nurse with the baby). The book - set in the 1950s, mostly in Dublin but partly in Scituate, Massachusetts - opens with a nurse being given a baby to take to the United States.
A broad-chested giant of a man, Quirke has lived alone since his wife died during childbirth years before (his wife, Delia, was the sister of Mal’s wife, Sarah) and, while he has apparently moderated his drinking quite a bit, he still socks a good deal away on a fairly regular basis. Quirke and a colleague of his, an obstetrician named Malachy Griffin (called Mal), were raised together after Griffin’s father, a prominent judge, rescued Quirke from an orphanage. The protagonist here is a pathologist named Quirke - and again the name is telling: The earliest known use of “quirk (in 1565) meant “quibble, evasion,” and Quirke is nothing if not evasive. Like the author of The Strangers in the House, Banville/Black knows how to make a scene palpable: “The sky was heavy with a seamless weight of putty-colored cloud that looked to be hardly higher than the rooftops of the houses on either side of the road, and flurries of heavy wet snow scudded before the wind.” Christine Falls offers a subtler, deeper satisfaction than just finding out whodunit.īanville has been quoted as saying how impressed he was to discover recently Georges Simenon’s psychological thrillers, and this novel compares quite favorably to Simenon’s best. Crime does figure in, and there’s mystery aplenty, but if you’re looking for fast-paced excitement, look elsewhere.
Well, as the dust jacket informs us, “Benjamin Black” is the pen name chosen by Banville - who won the Man Booker Prize in 2005 - for what is described as his “debut crime novel.” The name “Christine” derives from “Christian,” meaning “follower of Christ.” The book is certainly populated with fallen Christians.īut what has this to do with John Banville? The author of Christine Falls is one Benjamin Black. Take the title of this novel, Christine Falls. If any novelist may be said to weigh his words before putting them down, that novelist is John Banville.
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