Quirke (series)

The Quirke series of crime novels, written by Irish novelist John Banville under the pen name Benjamin Black, centres on the titular character, a pathologist in 1950s Dublin. The series is published by Henry Holt & Co. in the US. The first novel, Christine Falls, was first released by Picador in the UK in 2006; it was published in the US a year later.

Banville has stated that he drew from his experiences when he first moved to Dublin to inform the Quirke series:

Quirke lives in the apartment in Dublin which I inherited from my aunt and he moves around in that area where I was when I first moved to Dublin. He's better off than we were in those days, but yes, it's soaked in my recollections. It is more connected to the circumstances of my life than my Banville books.[1]

The eighth novel and ninth novels in the series, April in Spain and The Lock-Up," feature investigator St. John Strafford, a "Big House" Protestant, who is also a character in other Banville works.[2][3] These two novels are published under Banville's name rather than his pen name, Benjamin Black.

The Drowned, the tenth novel in the series, is slated for publication in October 2024.

  1. ^ Ellis-Petersen, Hannah (23 May 2014). "John Banville: 'Quirke comes from the damaged recesses of my Irish soul'". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
  2. ^ Deignan, Tom. "Crime Pays for John Banville". Irish America. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  3. ^ Battersby, Doug. “Prose Procedural.” TLS, the Times Literary Supplement. London: TES Global Limited, 2023.