A Death in Summer

As many know, Booker Award - winning novelist John Banville sometimes writes crime based novels under the name Benjamin Black. John Keating performs under his own name, and his reading of A DEATH IN SUMMER is a winner.

Keating is a natural to bring Dublin based Quirke to life as he has often performed with the Irish Repertory Theater and the Irish Arts Center. He is well remembered for his narration of Black's The Lemur as Publishers Weekly noted with this comment, "John Keating is simply marvelous here. His strong Irish accent does wonders when combined with Black's prose, creating a dark, brooding, and occasionally funny atmosphere that will surely draw listeners into the tale."

No doubt about also being drawn into this tale, the fourth featuring pathologist Dr. Garrett Quirke who can't resist not only discovering the cause of death when another body is delivered to the morgue but if the death isn't due to natural causes he simply has to find out who-dun-it. This he does handily with the help of his old friend Detective Inspector Hackett.

As Quirke's daughter says, he should have been a detective - even when the deceased is a big time newspaper man, Richard Jewell, (Diamond Dick to his enemies) who departs this life via a shotgun blast to his head. It's a bit puzzling that Dick's lovely French wife, Francoise, doesn't seem overcome by the loss of her husband, while Jewell's sister, Dannie, all but takes to her bed to grieve. It's a surprise to Quirke to learn that Dannie seeks solace from David Sinclair, Quirke's assistant in the pathology lab. Quite a surprise as Sinclair has been dating Quirke's daughter, Phoebe.

Factor into all of this a major heat wave melting the city and the emergence of secrets concerning Jewell's empire. Quirke loves to solve crimes but he's not too sure about putting his own life on the line to do so. A severed finger attached to his front door doesn't bode well for him

Black's prose is delicious and A DEATH IN SUMMER is beautifully written, rich with atmosphere and apt observations.