Vengeance - (Quirke) by John Banville & Benjamin Black (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Quirke finds himself at the center of a deadly intergenerational feud in the latest novel from Booker Prize-winning "literary polymath" (The New York Times) John Banville

Two men go sailing off the coast of Ireland. Only one comes back, claiming the other shot himself. But Detective Inspector Hackett and his friend Quirke aren't so sure...

The dead man is the patriarch of the powerful Delahaye family; the survivor is the scion of the Clancy family, their longtime rivals turned resentful business partners. As Quirke and Hackett investigate the death, they become embroiled in this multigenerational entanglement, encountering a host of characters at the heart of the mystery: Mona, Delahaye's beautiful, vicious young widow, his enigmatic identical twin sons, and Jack Clancy, his resentful, downtrodden, womanizing partner. But when a second, even more shocking death occurs, it becomes clear that terrible secrets undergird the families' world--secrets which Quirke will need to uncover if he wants to prevent more deaths.

Review Quotes

Praise for Vengeance

"Banville has become a dab hand at certain flourishes of classic genre writing, from the thumbnail character sketch...to the single startling image that turns the story on its head."
--The New York Times

"The [Quirke] books (this is the sixth) remain enticing, sultry pleasures."
--The New York Times

"The prose is gloriously limpid....The [Quirke] novels don't play up to all the clichés of crime drama, and therein lies their enjoyment."
--The Guardian

"John Banville, when he's not winning the Man Booker Prize and other literary hosannas, has become one of the world's great mystery men."
--NPR (Boston)

"Instinctively, the reader knows what to expect, and still is surprised....There is a blunt empathy with the principal characters that is curiously affecting. Effortlessly, it would seem, and never wanting, Banville's description of the physical world is superb."
--The Irish Times

"Like a Beckett character, Quirke is trapped. The mystery of these stylish...novels is how his hero will escape his fate."
--The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"[Banville's] mysteries are a fun but still toothy diversion."
--New York Post

"Sly, engaging....The stylish mystery of Vengeance unravels in an Ireland where the Catholic Church and its traditions hold a firm grip. [Banville] introduces us to a fascinating, finely drawn group of suspects."
--Shelf Awareness

"A provocative whydunit....Superior prose...and subtle mystery ensure another winner for [Banville]."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Tautly paced....[Banville's] new book is the best to date. Detective Inspector Hackett is back, his Irish country charm belying his keen mind, along with Quirke, a broody pathologist who always manages to fall off the wagon and bed a prime suspect."
--Library Journal

"[Banville] is in superbly crafty form...[He] keeps the plot sleek as his gleaming prose sails across the page as swiftly as the yachts owned by the wealthy victims in his latest tale of mannerly murder among the Irish elite....A seductively moody and shrewdly damning tale of privilege, arrogance, vengeance, and a touch of madness."
--Booklist

"[Banville] is in fine fettle, as usual; his prose harkens back to an earlier time, when the English language was to be savored. He develops a plot with the best of them, and his characters are finely drawn and challenging."
--Bookpage

"Quirke remains a compelling mystery, perhaps to himself most of all....Along the way, there's the pleasure of [Banville's] prose."
--Kirkus Reviews

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.