Another worthy thriller from the Irish master novelist.
A detective and a pathologist in 1950s Ireland suspect an apparent suicide is actually a murder.
When Rosa Jacobs is found dead in a garage, it initially looks like an open-and-shut case. The body of the 27-year-old woman, a history scholar in 1950s Dublin, is discovered behind the wheel of a car, with its hood up and most of its windows closed, a hose connecting the exhaust pipe to a gap in the driver’s side window. DI St. John Strafford is assigned to the case, as is Dr. Quirke, a pathologist who doubts that the case is a suicide—he noticed marks on Rosa’s mouth, which he thinks points to her having been gagged and anesthetized before being put in the running car. The two men’s investigation leads them to a German family that Rosa knew; they hear rumors that Rosa was romantically involved with one member, Frank. (The idea that Rosa, who was Jewish, would befriend Germans so soon after World War II strikes many involved in the case as odd.) The plot thickens as the investigators discover that a friend of Rosa’s from Tel Aviv has been killed by a hit-and-run driver. Throughout the novel, the difficult relationship between Strafford and Quirke is explored; Quirke’s wife was shot to death in Spain some time before, and Strafford killed her killer. Quirke turned to alcohol after his wife’s murder, and his personality has become unpredictable: “Quirke’s mere presence in a room had an incendiary effect. He was like phosphorus, that burns in air.” This novel succeeds on the considerable strength of its characters, especially the quicksilver Quirke and the quiet Strafford. The prose and dialogue are stellar, as one would expect from the Booker Prize–winning Banville, and the ending comes as a complete shock. Banville has written several novels featuring Quirke, mostly under the pen name Benjamin Black; this one is a worthy addition to that series.
Another worthy thriller from the Irish master novelist.Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9781335449634
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.
Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family.
One morning in 1975 at Camp Emerson—an Adirondacks summer camp owned by her family—it's discovered that 13-year-old Barbara isn't in her bed. A problem case whose unhappily married parents disdain her goth appearance and "stormy" temperament, Barbara is secretly known by one bunkmate to have slipped out every night after bedtime. But no one has a clue where's she permanently disappeared to, firing speculation that she was taken by a local serial killer known as Slitter. As Jacob Sluiter, he was convicted of 11 murders in the 1960s and recently broke out of prison. He's the one, people say, who should have been prosecuted for Bear's abduction, not a gardener who was framed. Leave it to the young and unproven assistant investigator, Judy Luptack, to press forward in uncovering the truth, unswayed by her bullying father and male colleagues who question whether women are "cut out for this work." An unsavory group portrait of the Van Laars emerges in which the children's father cruelly abuses their submissive mother, who is so traumatized by the loss of Bear—and the possible role she played in it—that she has no love left for her daughter. Picking up on the themes of families in search of themselves she explored in Long Bright River (2020), Moore draws sympathy to characters who have been subjected to spousal, parental, psychological, and physical abuse. As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted. Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593418918
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
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