This one well reviewed in paper, started with his first, Christine Falls. So-so - stopped after 40 pages. And forgot to return it, so a fine too.Maybe should pick a later one.

Really enjoyed this book. I really like Christine Falls, but found the Silver Swan a bit to meandering and honestly a bit off-color for my taste. A Death in Summer really brought the story line back and developed the core characters. Black definitely exceeds my tolerance for dark plots at times, but the promise of reconciliation and redemption for the characters keeps me reading.

Very good. Sympathetic characters.

"The proof of a great writer is the ability to keep improving with every book, learning from even small mistakes, taking the story further. That’s what sets Benjamin Black’s Quirke mysteries at the top of the pile. Black, a.k.a. John Banville, already knew anything anyone needed to know about fiction when he wrote his first mystery. Now, on his fourth, he’s pruned and perfected his characters, his setting and his themes and he’s got the best Quirke novel so far and one of this year’s best mysteries. "It’s Dublin in the fifties, a dour place with dour people. Inspector Hackett is summoned to the site of an apparent suicide. The dead man is press tycoon Richard Jewell – “Diamond Dick” to his familiars – and he’s missing his head, which has been blown off by the shotgun (a Purdey, Hatchett notes) he has clutched in his hands. Hackett isn’t convinced by the scene and he’s happy to see Quirke on the case. The pair meet with a less than grieving widow and a scatty sister, both with weak alibis. But they’re only two of the people who are cheered by Jewell’s timely death. "There isn’t a useless adjective or unnecessary sentence in this brilliantly plotted and gorgeously written novel. Black never forgets that the characters drive the story and they are pitch perfect. Readers will love this book. Writers should takes notes." Margaret Cannon Globe & Mail July 20 2011