In a nutshell, Strafford is sent to County Wexford in Ireland to investigate the death of a local Catholic priest at the family seat of the aristocratic landowning Protestant Osborne family.

Strafford is an interesting protagonist. He’s Protestant and from a landowning class himself, but eschewed a legal career for a police career much to the disdain of his family. He was sent to investigate this case precisely because of his background.

What made this an absolutely fascinating read was that it’s set in the 1950s and the scars of the Irish Civil War are still very raw. The country still feels sectarian with assumptions being made about each other by Catholics and Protestants alike. Compounding that further are the expectations and preconceptions of class. All this under the controlling gaze of the Catholic Church with a stranglehold over all of Irish society.

Snow is the first book that I have read by John Banville. It’s the first book in the Detective Inspector St John Strafford series and I will certainly continue to read the rest of the books in this series.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Faber & Faber, for making this e-ARC available to me to read in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Detective Inspector St John Stratford is sent to Ballyglass House, the seat of the aristocratic Osborne family, where a Catholic priest has been found castrated and murdered.
John Banville's novel is much more than a detective story. It looks closely at the religious tensions in the Republic of Ireland in 1957, and the way in which the Catholic Church sought to protect its priests at all costs.
The author evokes a strong atmosphere of time and place and eventually reveals the true horror behind the body in the library. A compelling piece of storytelling.

When a priest is found dead, John Stafford is called in to investigate. Not only has he been killed but he has also been castrated

He is found in the library..and most of the Osborne family are suspects in the killing.

Thos book reminded me a little of Agatha Christie and a lot of a game of cluedo it's amazing.

I loved the edge of humour and the suspense just made me want me want more.

Set in Ireland in the 50's this book, of course has Catholic and Protestant references, but it is wonderfully descriptive and quite honestly now one of my favourite reads.