Holy Orders - (Quirke) by John Banville & Benjamin Black (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

When the body of his daughter's friend is brought to his autopsy table, Quirke is plunged into a world of corruption that takes him to the darkest corners of the Catholic Church, in one of The Wall Street Journal's "Ten Best Mysteries of the Year."

1950s Dublin. A battered body discovered floating in a canal is quickly identified as Jimmy Minor, an up-and-coming investigative journalist for the Clarion and a good friend to Phoebe, the daughter of pathologist Quirke.

Determined to find Jimmy's killer, Quirke enlists his sometime partner, Inspector Hackett. As they dig deeper into the stories Jimmy was pursuing and the secrets he was poised to reveal, and Quirke is haunted by the memories of his own grim childhood in a priest-run orphanage, the two men will see just how far the Church and its supporters will go to protect their own interests.

Review Quotes

Praise for Holy Orders

"Absorbing...The murder mystery is solved, after its startling fashion, in due time--but not before [Banville] has worked his lyrical magic at fine length, in scenes that unfold with a poet's grace."
--The Wall Street Journal

"Sophisticated...[Banville] is arguably one of the finest prose stylists writing in English today."
--The Wire

"Read [Banville] for the prose, the setting and the steadily disintegrating character of Quirke. You won't be disappointed."
--The Spectator

"It is doubtful that anyone can write as well as [Banville] when it comes to a psychological mystery."
--The Washington Times

"[Holy Orders] starts and ends as strongly as the best of the Quirkes."
--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Outstanding...[Banville] has turned in his most complex plot yet in Holy Orders."
--The Star-Ledger

"Gripping, terrific...Although it shares the vivid settings, evocative mood, and striking characters of the earlier Quirke novels, Holy Orders has a tighter, more intricate plot."
--Tampa Bay Times

Praise for John Banville

"Ireland's greatest living novelist...a literary polymath."
--The New York Times

"A grand writer with a seductive style."
--The New York Times Book Review

"The Irish master."
--The New Yorker

"One of the best novelists in English."
--The Guardian

"One of the most imaginative literary novelists writing in the English language today."
--The Washington Post

"[Banville's] books are like baroque cathedrals."
--The Paris Review

"Prodigiously gifted. He cannot write an unpolished phrase."
--The Independent

"One periodically rereads a [Banville] sentence just to marvel at its beauty."
--USA Today

"Banville is a master at capturing the most fleeting memory or excruciating twinge of self-awareness with riveting accuracy."
--People

About the Author

JOHN BANVILLE was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of numerous novels, including The Sea, which won the 2005 Booker Prize, and the DI Quirke mysteries. In 2011 he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, in 2013 he was awarded the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature, and in 2014 he won the Prince of Asturias Award, Spain's most important literary prize. He lives in Dublin.