The Drowned
A Novel
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4.0 • 9 Ratings
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
From the renowned Booker Prize winner and nationally bestselling author of Snow comes a richly atmospheric new mystery about a woman’s sudden disappearance in a small coastal town in Ireland, where nothing is as it seems.
"John Banville is one of my favorite writers alive, and I pick up his books whenever I need a reminder how to write a good sentence.”—R.F. Kuang
“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 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. But as the case unfolds, events from the past resurface that may have life-altering ramifications for all involved.
At once a searing mystery and a profound meditation on the hidden worlds we all inhabit, The Drowned is the next great Strafford and Quirke novel from a beloved writer at the top of his game.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Irish author John Banville’s magnificently moody Strafford and Quirke mystery series continues with this haunting slow burn. Near a coastal Irish village in the 1950s, a woman’s car is found abandoned, and her husband fears she’s thrown herself into the sea. The only potential witness is a disreputable man living on his own nearby. Dublin policeman St. John Strafford and pathologist Dr. Quirke, brought in to investigate, have their own problems—foremost among them, Strafford’s ongoing relationship with Quirke’s daughter, Phoebe. Banville is an extraordinary observer of human nature who writes beautifully spare yet intensely descriptive prose that feels deeply immersive. Newcomers to the world of Strafford and Quirke will get much out of this evocative mystery, and longtime fans will appreciate how a storyline from its immediate predecessor, The Lock-Up, is continued. Either way, The Drowned is a fascinating read that will keep you up all night.
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.
