An abandoned car in a remote location, found by an ex-con; a missing woman presumed drowned, her husband acting strangely and holiday makers who seem to know more that they are letting on... DI Strafford and Quirke, the pathologist, need to put their differences aside to solve the crime.
Although well-written, for me this book focused more on the relationships between the characters than on solving the crime itself. I suspect it would have been useful to have read the earlier books in the series. Despite this, I still enjoyed the book.

This, the fourth Strafford and Quirke mystery, is more soap opera than crime drama but it's an evocative, beautiful read where very little detective work is undertaken...lives are lost, relationships are complicated, events from previous tales are explained and future developments are set-up.

I'm a new found reader of John Banville's work and as such had to make good with the tidbits about previous cases and what formed the basis for the relationship between the two lead characters - a definite begrudging love/hate complicated by Straffords relationship with Quirkes daughter Phoebe...all set against an early 1950's Southern Ireland...those tidbits have certainly left me wanting more BUT also cost the review a star rating because as a soap opera it's left too much unsaid, unfinished, unexplained to achieve the completeness that a five star review merits...hopefully I'll come back one day and add that missing point because with greater involvement in this strange new world things make more sense.

A fascinating read from someone who has the ability to immerse the reader in the era, the characters, the country. Whilst most of the characters are not exactly likable, John Banville evokes and inspires pity for a social outcast, curiosity about the main players, recognition of an Ireland pre-EEC/EU, while capturing the slowness of police work pre cell phones, computers, internet. The multilayered and complicated relationships are captured with elegance as the investigation progresses. It did seem that the personal lives of the investigating team took precedence over the crime but deft story-telling uncovers who did what and how they are punished. Gifted writing from Mr Banville.

This was a most unusual book for me to rate.

The author is clearly talented. The characters were interesting and realistic. That is usually more than enough. However, I felt the plot let the book down. It seemed to me that there was a lot going on that the reader should really know from previous books in the series. Not an easy stand-alone. The actual crimes were almost an insignificant plot feature compared to the characters, their relationships and interactions. The ending was romantic and pleasing. It was a nice finish.

Overall though I had a feeling of disappointment. That was down to the plot I am sorry to say. However I did enjoy the creative style of the author and book characters. (Well, apart from Prof. Armitage).

Another thoroughly enjoyable Strafford and Quirke Dublin based mystery. Starting with the disappearance of a woman besides the sea after an argument with her husband the main characters are all introduced in the first scenes. The relationship between Strafford and Quirke continues to be troubled especially with Strafford’s relationship with Quirke’s daughter skilfully woven into the story. Beautifully described scenes of 1950’s Dublin all add to this super atmospheric drama and hopefully the somewhat short ending will be used as an introduction to the next episode.

A fisherman comes across an abandoned car when a man arrives and tells him that his wife has drowned. Something in the man's manner isn't right and doesn't sit well with the Fisherman. When Strafford of the Gardai shows up, he picks up on it too, recognising the man from a previous case he worked on.
This book was more about the relationships between people and the murder investigation seemed to take a backseat. I spent the book hoping more would happen. Fear not it does!

Such skillful writing, such flawed characters. Great to read another Quirke novel, although I felt some of the ending was a little rushed and not a full picture. Might be picked up in a future novel perhaps? Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance reader copy. .

I've not read any of the earlier three Strafford and Quirke mysteries, but I will look out for them after this fourth outing for detective and pathologist. I particularly enjoyed the rather downbeat tone of this novel and the sense that much of the mystery could be unravelled by common sense and dogged interviewing rather than dramatic lightbulb ideas that always seem a little forced to me. There is an interesting personal story which links Strafford and Quirke through the latter's daughter, and one with an ailing boss, and these create a grounded backdrop for the case itself. The writing is beautifully apt for the setting and the character interactions, and provided a sense of period and place. A wonderful discovery of a new but credible detective for me.

John Banvile words like a painter slowly building up relationships, songs and plot, this one is a little more theatrical, and the tone both Irish and slightly Kafkaesque. I enjoyed it very much.

It’s certainly not essential to have read any of the Strafford and Quirke books before you read The Drowned but I must admit it did help a little. A mystery about a missing woman involving a detective and a pathologist suggests something very different from the reality, which is much more literary than most of this type of book.

Set in 1950s Ireland, the mystery is almost incidental to the character study and the book moves very slowly. The atmosphere is suffocating and rather grey and the very realistic rural setting means it’s difficult and time consuming for information to be gathered and people to reach places. The story is largely told from the viewpoint of the two main characters (and a few more minor ones) and it’s quite unusual how much of it is told using their inner voice in a kind of monologue. This leads to a slightly meandering, train of thought style which often wanders off to almost irrelevant details but brings them to life.

The relationship between the two main characters is also strange. They don’t seem to like each other much but their work and private lives mean they are often drawn together. One is widowed, the other on the point of divorce and involved with a much younger woman, neither seems particularly happy and both are often quite detached, so it can be hard to like them much but they’re interesting. As I said, the mystery often seems secondary to their personalities but it’s a decent story, involving characters from the last book in the series and it seems as though the next has been set up at the end of this one - the slightly unfinished feel again makes it seem truer to life, which doesn’t usually wrap up neatly.

It's certainly not fast paced but there’s something almost hypnotic about Banville’s beautiful writing which really pulled me in and it’s definitely a cut above most of this genre. I’m looking forward to seeing where the characters go next.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review. I have put this review on Goodreads and Waterstones and will add it to Amazon on publication day.

I am new to John Banville and also the detective character and took a while to get into his style. Such a strange, haunting story, where so many characters have repressed secrets - absolutely fascinating and beautifully written. The bleakness of the era, the injustices and prejudices were so well captured. Recommended.

2 stars , felt like a writer treading water with a thin plot and characters waiting to be developed. A pity as I’ve enjoyed his previous books

Beautifully written with gorgeous descriptions. The story is woven so perfectly. I love the series and this is another phenomenal read . Cannot wait for the next book !

Exquisitely written with beautiful perfect descriptions. I love the Strafford and Quirke books and I can't get enough of John Banville generally. The depth of characterisation is astonishing - all the quirks(!) of human emotions are here in all their contradictory confusion. These are not happy-ending books but are far above that. Genius.

Despite this being one of a series I did not feel I had missed anything from previous books in the series - BUT I will go back and read them!
The characters are so well developed I was fascinated by them. Strafford is an unemotional man who, by his own admission, is lacking in feelings which he knows he should have. Despite this he is attractive to women. He is an honourable officer and yet knows he cannot effectively make his mark and make sure justice is done. Strafford has been estranged from his wife for some time and it is hard to feel he is responsible for their estrangement. He has a younger partner now, Phoebe, and their relationship is strange too.
Banville even managed to make me feel pity and sympathy for Wymes - an outcast because of his paedophile past
Yes there is a mystery running through the book, but it feels incidental to the writing and the characters.
Many thanks to Netgalley/John Banville/Faber and Faber for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

With his Strafford and Quirke novels John Banville becomes increasingly like, well, John Banville, and less and less like Benjamin Black, the alter ego who created the series. In many ways this might be considered the best contribution yet.

A word of warning: The Drowned a is a sort of sequel to The Lock Up, the previous novel in the sequence, and the reader who has read The Lock Up will react in quite a different way to the characters and the narrative to a reader who has not. That's not to say that it cannot be enjoyed in either eventuality, and there may seem much more of a mystery to be solved if you have not read The Lock Up.

After a row in their car, a wife runs off towards the sea, and disappears. The husband seems oddly unemotional about her disappearance, and what strange link does he have with a couple on holiday in a nearby cottage? And what is the significance of the paedophile recluse who happens upon the scene?

Strafford investigates, after a fashion. Mostly however, he ruminates, avoids responsibilities, interacts passively with Quirke and Phoebe, his daughter, as well as his estranged wife, who now requires a divorce. His ineffectuality knows no bounds.

Yet justice is done. But as so often with Banville, it is a sour and bitter justice, the justice, in fact, of the lynch-mob, in one case deserved, it would appear, in the other, containing all the faults of such a bigoted travesty of what is right.

This is #4 in the Inspector Strafford/Dr Quirke series and John Banvilles latest.

I recently discovered this series.and have become a big fan of the unlikely pairing of enigmatic police inspector St John Strafford and the moody pathologist Dr Quirke. The books are set in 1950s Ireland, rather a grim period in our history, but one that Banville recreates so vividly through his lyrical prose. Ireland in the 1950s was a country blighted by unemployment and emigration, it was also a deeply conservative country, dominated by the power of the Catholic Church and in particular the head of the church in Ireland at the time, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, who is often referenced in these novels. Women were second class citizens, with no access to contraception or divorce.

In this novel, Inspector Strafford is sent to investigate the disappearance of a young woman in Co Wicklow, under very suspicious circumstances. The woman's husband is a character from a previous novel in the series, which would make this novel difficult to read as a stand alone, but which I really enjoyed. Meanwhile Straffords on-off relationship with Quirkes daughter Phoebe continues as Quirke struggles to come to terms with the death of his wife. These are less crime novels than character studies. In many ways the murder investigation is secondary to the story - I became totally absorbed in the evocative 1950s Dublin which the author has lovingly recreated I would highly recommend this novel which I read over two sittings. Many thanks to @netgalley and @faberbooks for this advance read in return for my honest opinion.
4 stars from me.

A strange kind of redemption

Now, I have neither read Banville’s writing as Benjamin Black – the series of crime novels featuring pathologist Quirke, nor the literary stand alone novels written as John Banville, nor even the previous novels, written as John Banville, but involving both Quirke and Detective Inspector Strafford, of which THIS novel, The Drowned, is book 4 of the series.

So, I CAN say that despite having no prior knowledge of the previous 3 novels, I was immediately absorbed in the 1950’s rural Ireland world. But I do surmise that for those who have followed the series, there must inevitably be resonances which I failed to respond to. Primarily, there are some ongoing references and surprises involved in new information about historical cases the men were involved with. I can’t though, stress enough how powerful and involving this book was for me, as a stand alone.

Paradoxically this is because this seems far less like a crime fiction novel, and far more like literary fiction, my main ‘genre’ of interest. It’s far less about the nuts and bolts and techniques of detection, does not involve the graphic, forensically visceral, almost gratuitously indulgent description of violence which some modern writers of crime fiction deploy, instead, it focuses on complex personalities (which we all have) and the relationships between people, including the psychology of early experience and parenting, which gives rise to who we are, in our deepest responses

The Drowned has a strong, unsettling, melancholy opening. Wemyss, a recluse (we will discover why later) living in a ramshackle caravan with his dog, on an isolated headland, discovers an expensive luxury car , doors open, lights on without any driver, on a murky late autumn day, with the light fading. Ignoring his own alarm and desire to run from what is surely a bad event, he goes to investigate, and is seen by a somewhat slippery, spivvy type character in some strange, not quite authentic, hysteria. The man, Armitage, pleads for help, saying his wife has drowned. The men go to ask for help at the nearest isolated house, where there might be a phone. However, the people holidaying in that house seem – odd.

Later, the police involvement will begin, which is where Strafford and Quirke come in. Strafford is melancholic, recently separated, with his wife seeking a divorce. Strafford is not a womaniser, but he has a kind of push pull going on in his heart, both yearning for connection, and in flight from it. Quirke, much older, mourning the death of his wife, does not particularly like Strafford, and there are some awkward dynamics between the two. Additionally, Quirke has a drink problem. Neither man has an uncomplicated relationship with the past or present women in their lives

This is a slow paced book, beautifully so, allowing all the complexities of relationships in small tight knit communities to come through. There’s some kind of compassion and understanding, arrived at with difficulty, which is found between unlikely individuals.

For sure I am now going back to explore this series from the start

I haven’t read any of the previous Strafford and Quirke series, but felt this worked OK as enough of a back story is given to have an insight into the characters and relationships. Once I had slowed down in to the tempo of the writing I really enjoyed the atmosphere and mystery the author created. There is very little humour to lighten the dark tale, but I still enjoyed it and will look out for the next one.
Thank you to netgalley and Faber and Faber for an advance copy of this book

I liked the premise of this book and that is why I chose to read it however it didn't really live up to what it promised. Parts of it were good but other parts I found to be speed reading as they didn't have much to do with the core story. Loved that it was set in 1950's Ireland and the foibles which go along with that time.
Overall 3.5*

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC to review.