3.5

I've never read any of Banville's other books, but his ability to spin a good sentence, even if it is in a half-serious light (as it sometimes seems to be in Christine Falls) is lovely to read. His language has a wonderful sound to it; the rhythm of his sentences has a sing song quality to them. As far as plot or character however, Christine Falls, uh, falls short. Quirk has his moments as a mortician turned novice gumshoe, but here Banville isn't so much winking at genre tropes as much as he's lifting them from the pages of other books. There's just not that much originality in the character. The plot crawls forward at a rather slow pace, and there aren't that many twists and turns.

Christine Falls reminds me somewhat of a movie you've seen many times before you can just put it on in the background while you're doing house chores because you can steel glimpses of it now and again and instantly remember the events of the story, except at a certain point it occurs to you that you hadn't ever seen that particular movie before. The familiarity came by how reminiscent it was to other stories.

In the end it is Banville's words, the way he constructs lovely, mellifluous sentences that seem effortless that carries forward the somewhat lackluster story. Next time I need a break and a bit of fun, I'll turn to the next entry into the Quirk books and I look forward to reading Banville's other books published under his name.

Found this a disappointing read. I don't understand why female characters need to suffer abuse/rape that has no real bearing on the plot. Expected better of John Banville/Mr Black.

It was a sort-of mystery with an anti-climactic ending and a sub-plot that was, frequently, more interesting than the plot itself. Black has apparently written a couple more books starring Quirk, the pathologist from this novel, and I might read them, though probably not immediately. Pleasantly, it was read by Timothy Dalton, and he's got a great reading voice. Over all, it wasn't bad, but also not great.