The Drowned
A Strafford and Quirke Murder Mystery
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4.3 • 8 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
'Banville is one of my favourite writers alive.' REBECCA F. KUANG
'Beautifully written and intriguing.' GUARDIAN
He had seen drowned people. A sight not to be forgotten.
1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn't approach, but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person's case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea.
Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally - the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke - a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways.
Readers were gripped by The Drowned:
'Addictive and atmospheric' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Remarkable . . . it took my breath away' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Another flawless Strafford and Quirke mystery' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Outstanding, Banville is the best crime writer out there' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
On UK bestseller list w/e 13/11/2021-27/11/2021 for Paperback Fiction
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Booker winner Banville's latest crime saga featuring Det. Insp. John Strafford and pathologist Garret Quirke (after April in Spain) is a lyrical but lugubrious affair. On an October evening in the 1950s, hermit Denton Wymes finds an abandoned Mercedes in a field on Ireland's southeastern coast. Soon, a man named Armitage crests a nearby hill and tells Wymes that his wife may have just drowned herself. The pair seeks help at a nearby cottage, where the residents and Armitage act oddly. After Wymes contacts the police, Strafford's boss sends him from Dublin to investigate. Upon his arrival, he discovers that Armitage "seemed to regard the disappearance of his wife as little more than an inconvenience," but without a body, the investigation has little to go on. Instead, Banville zeroes in on Strafford's impending divorce; his bumbling affair with Quirke's daughter, Phoebe; and Quirke's angst about his wife's recent death. Banville is a formidable stylist ("There was none of summer's languorous vibrancy, only a great pale-blue stillness," he writes of autumn's arrival in a small town), but none of the novel's domestic drama is particularly gripping, and the solution to the mystery is both underwhelming and too tangled in series lore. It's a case of atmosphere over action that's unlikely to satisfy most mystery fans.
