Elegy for April

Starred review from February 22, 2010
Black's engrossing third crime thriller set in 1950s Dublin (after The Silver Swan
) finds pathologist Garret Quirke fresh from a stint in alcohol rehab. Quirke reluctantly agrees to help his daughter, Phoebe Griffin, with whom he has a tenuous relationship, find her missing best friend, April Latimer, a junior doctor at a local hospital. Quirke soon finds that members of the powerful Latimer family have all but disowned April, and yet he's sure they know more than they're letting on. Phoebe does her own sleuthing among the group of friends she shared with April, including a stage actress, a handsome Nigerian surgical student, and a reporter. Black (the pen name of Booker Prize–winner John Banville) is equally concerned with exploring the idea of family and loyalty as with spinning a suspenseful whodunit, and his depiction of a fragile father-daughter relationship is as powerful as the unsettling truth behind April's disappearance. Author tour.

May 31, 2010
Timothy Dalton, former James Bond and longtime reader of Black's thrillers, channels his Royal Shakespeare Company roots to give life to pathologist Garret Quirk. Black (a pseudonym of Booker Prize–winner John Banville) specializes in psychologically complex 1950s Dublin noir. In this latest installment set in a gray, sleeting winter, Quirk—fresh out of rehab and at the behest of his daughter, Phoebe—delves into the disappearance of a young doctor, April Latimer. The two young women were members of a clique that also includes an arrogant, diminutive reporter, a theatrical actress, and a Nigerian prince. Dalton uses only subtle shifts in tone to delineate the characters, focusing more on their temperaments than gender or ethnicity. He does the same for the members of April's influential family, effectively underlining their arrogance and disdain for the unruly Quirk. As the haunted pathologist shambles through his unauthorized investigation, questioning events in his own life and falling back on his alcoholic ways, the author is more successful in creating a mood of melancholy rather than suspense. But thanks to his exquisite style and Dalton's precise locutions, that more than suffices. A Holt hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 22).