Vengeance (Quirke Mysteries) [Hardcover]

In this fifth novel of the Dublin-based series involving Dr. Quirke, author Benjamin Black, the pen name of Booker Prize-winner John Banville, continues all the main characters from previous novels, spending little time rehashing the sometimes sordid history of their relationships. Instead, he picks up where he left off with A Death in Summer, set in the 1950s. Quirke, a Dublin physician, is still running the hospital's pathology lab, and he has finally resolved an old wound by reuniting with his wary daughter Phoebe Griffin. Brought up as the child of Quirke's stepbrother Malachy and never informed until recently of her real parentage, Phoebe is somewhat leery of Quirke, not really knowing how to treat him or what he expects. Quirke, a long-time friend of Police Detective Inspector Hackett, is still available for private consultations with him, especially when the real reasons for a death may be in dispute.

Both Hackett and Quirke become involved with an investigation at the beginning of this novel when Victor Delahaye, the main partner in an old company with a flourishing automobile repair business, invites the young son of his partner Jack Clancy to accompany him on a sail. Young Davy Clancy hates sailing, and has no idea why Jack makes such an issue of having him as the only passenger. When he and Delahaye are far from land, Delahaye pulls out a gun and kills himself. Quirke, upon examining the body, accompanies Inspector Hackett when he interviews the not-so-bereaved family. The remainder of the novel involves the search to discover why Victor Delahaye committed suicide, a problem which becomes far more complicated when yet another death occurs at sea, this one far more mysterious.

Black's style has always been to keep things simple throughout and to write clear, concise prose, and no reader will have trouble keeping track of the characters, their stated motivations, and how their actions evolve. At his most incisive, Black has always placed his characters firmly within the 1950s milieu of Dublin society, allowing the action to turn on personalities and their predicaments. Those new to the series may become completely absorbed in the mystery and its revelations about characters, but those who have read the entire series so far (and I've read them all) may wonder, sadly, if the series has played itself out. The new characters are static and verge on stereotypes, and Quirke and the familiar characters fail to grow or develop in new ways.

The expected twists in the story do come with the kind of suddenness one expects of such mysteries, but they are simple twists, not complex, and many readers may figure out some of the "surprises" - and the ending - before they occur. Vengeance can often be complex and it is certainly a major motivating factor here, but the sometimes elegant simplicity which Black has made a trademark in the earlier novels, becomes merely simplistic here.

The Delahayes and the Clancys have been in business together for two generations but everyone knows that the Delahayes call the tune. So it is that Davy Clancy doesn't feel he can refuse when Victor Delahaye, his father's partner, invites him out on his boat one day when they are all holidaying at the Delahayes' country house near Cork. Once out at sea, Victor takes out a gun and shoots himself. As the families are Dubliners, the case is passed over to Inspector Hackett who, uncomfortable with the rich and posh, asks Quirke to help him. The Delahayes --young second wife and louche twin sons-- seem little affected by his shocking death. Only Victor's spinster sister Maggie seems to care. Meanwhile, Davy's father, Jack, has been secretly attempting a hostile takeover of the company. Then there is another death: we, the readers, know that it is murder but that is not obvious to Hackett.

Having been the central pivot in the first four books, Quirke seems curiously marginalised here, as if only half awake. Black created a vivid character in Christine Falls but has left him to fade away ever since. Left by the woman he loved in volume 4, he finds himself back in the arms of actress Isabel, whom he previously dumped and left to a suicide attempt of her own. The glamorous widow Delayhaye also has her eye on him. As so often in fiction written by men, we are expected to believe that no attractive woman can wait to throw herself into the arms of a depressed, middle-aged alcoholic.

90% of the time Black writes beautiful, resonant prose and then a leaden cliché will appear on the page, as if a troll had crept into his manuscript and vandalised it.

The title is interesting: it's the first time Black has used a single word -- a stark abstraction -- as his title in the Quirke series. Revenge is one of the driving forces of human action, but who is it who is seeking vengeance, and for what? The book is a short and easy read but somehow unsatisfactory; the contrivance of an alibi is too obvious and the denouement weak and hasty.

I enjoyed this book, although I do have my reservations about it. Set in Ireland in the 1950s, pathologist Quirke investigates two deaths in two families who together own and run a large business. This is the fifth in the Quirke series and it helps to have read some of the earlier ones although it isn't essential.

The plot, frankly, is slight and predictable and anyone familiar with crime fiction will spot most of what is coming from an early stage. Although not as floridly literary as when he is writing under his own name, Banville's underlying interests are the same: insights into how character works and rich evocation of time, place and the internal lives of his characters. He succeeds well with all of that here; my reservations are mainly that I didn't feel that this was quite enough to carry the book with so little interesting plot. Personally, I don't find Quirke a terribly interesting character so having his thoughts and behaviour as the central theme of the book didn't really work for me, and Inspector Hackett, who I found a wonderful creation in the previous book, scarcely gets a look-in here. However, there is enough in other characters to hold the interest and I found I wanted to see how things turned out.

I suspect that readers looking for a good crime thriller will be a bit disappointed, but fans of Banville will love this. It's not a gripping read, but recommended nonetheless as a thoughtful and contemplative one with a good deal of interest.