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A Death in Summer
A Death in Summer: A Novel | Benjamin Black
4 posts | 4 read | 4 to read
One of The Chicago Tribune's Best Reads of 2011 One of Dublin's most powerful men meets a violent end and an acknowledged master of crime fiction delivers his most gripping novel yet On a sweltering summer afternoon, newspaper tycoon Richard Jewellknown to his many enemies as Diamond Dickis discovered with his head blown off by a shotgun blast. But is it suicide or murder? For help with the investigation, Detective Inspector Hackett calls in his old friend Quirke, who has unusual access to Dublin's elite. Jewell's coolly elegant French wife, Franoise, seems less than shocked by her husband's death. But Dannie, Jewell's high-strung sister, is devastated, and Quirke is surprised to learn that in her grief she has turned to an unexpected friend: David Sinclair, Quirke's ambitious assistant in the pathology lab at the Hospital of the Holy Family. Further, Sinclair has been seeing Quirke's fractious daughter Phoebe, and an unlikely romance is blossoming between the two. As a record heat wave envelops the city and the secret deals underpinning Diamond Dick's empire begin to be revealed, Quirke and Hackett find themselves caught up in a dark web of intrigue and violence that threatens to end in disaster. Tightly plotted and gorgeously written, A Death in Summer proves to the brilliant but sometimes reckless Quirke that in a city where old money and the right bloodlines rule, he is by no means safe from mortal danger.
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CharlesSwann
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Good but not great. Ends very abruptly. Preferred the first 3 in the series

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gradcat
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#adventrecommends Day 20 @emilyrose_x
Another historical mystery series (surprise!) for my fellow Littens: The Quirke series by Benjamin Black (pen name for Booker prize winner John Banville) is now also a television series. My favorite of the series is the tagged book. Quirke is not a detective, nor an inspector; rather, he is a coroner. His police friend, DI Hackett, calls Quirke in on this one because he suspects that Quirke‘s higher social ⬇️

gradcat (Cont) status will gain him entree with the elite family involved in this case. Set in 1950s Dublin, the series is replete with a stodgy upper class assured of its own superiority, Catholic morality (esp. as regards unmarried pregnant women), and conservative & patriarchal policemen. 6y
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CaitlinR
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Recommended by @CarolynM (thanks). I have to admit, I often skim mysteries — so many of them are “phoned in” but I read every word of this. Not surprising given that this is the pen name for John Banville, one of my favorite authors. Loved Quirke, who has real depth. I‘m off to the Library for more.

CarolynM So glad you enjoyed it. It's the only one of his I've read, but I really must get some others. Those literary guys write great crime fiction - I love the series Julian Barnes wrote as Dan Kavanagh. Back to Quirke, have you seen the TV adaptation with Gabriel Byrne? 6y
CaitlinR @CarolynM I haven‘t seen the TV production. I‘d love to and will search it out. I love Byrne. (edited) 6y
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CarolynM
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#MarchInBooks #SeasonIntheTitle

The Quirke books are terrific. The TV series with Gabriel Byrne was pretty good too.

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