A shopping list written by John Banville would still be well worth reading. He is such a wonderful mellifluous writer with a gift for story telling and characterisation. This is a return of the ill-suited double act of Strafford and Quirke and the book rejoices in their idiosyncrasies which are a total delight to read.

There is naturally a murder to solve too and it would certainly help if you have read his previous book "The Lock-Up" but I just immersed myself in the richness of his language and was exhilarated by the experience.

Stafford and Quirke return for a fourth outing in The Drowned, which continues on from the previous novel The Lock-up.. Strafford finds himself investigating the case of a missing woman who could have drowned, he finds himself coming into contact again with Professor Armitage, a strange man whose research assistant was murdered in The Lock-up. Nothing seems right to Strafford and so he decides to speak with Quirke to get his take on the strange situation he finds himself in.

This outstanding series isn't just a crime series, it is a multi layered novel dealing with characters who are multifaceted in their natures. John Banville is a masterful novelist who luckily turned his eye to crime writing and has created a quite exceptional series.