Snow - (Strafford and Quirke) by John Banville (Paperback)

About the Book

Detective Inspector St. John Strafford has been summoned to County Wexford to investigate a murder. A parish priest has been found dead in Ballyglass House, the family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family. The year is 1957 and the Catholic Church rules Ireland with an iron fist. Strafford--flinty, visibly Protestant and determined to identify the murderer--faces obstruction at every turn, from the heavily accumulating snow to the culture of silence in the tight-knit community he begins to investigate. As he delves further, he learns the Osbornes are not at all what they seem. And when his own deputy goes missing, Strafford must work to unravel the ever-expanding mystery before the community's secrets, like the snowfall itself, threaten to obliterate everything.

Book Synopsis

"One of the very best mysteries of this or any other year." --Globe and Mail

"Banville sets up and then deftly demolishes the Agatha Christie format... Superbly rich and sophisticated." --New York Times Book Review

Detective Inspector St. John Strafford has been summoned to County Wexford to investigate a murder. A parish priest has been found dead in Ballyglass House, the family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family.

The year is 1957 and the Catholic Church rules Ireland with an iron fist. Strafford--flinty, visibly Protestant and determined to identify the murderer--faces obstruction at every turn, from the heavily accumulating snow to the culture of silence in the tight-knit community he begins to investigate.

As he delves further, he learns the Osbornes are not at all what they seem. And when his own deputy goes missing, Strafford must work to unravel the ever-expanding mystery before the community's secrets, like the snowfall itself, threaten to obliterate everything.

Beautifully crafted, darkly evocative and pulsing with suspense, Snow is "the Irish master" (New Yorker) John Banville at his page-turning best.

Review Quotes

Praise for John Banville

"John Banville is one of my favorite writers alive, and I pick up his books whenever I need a reminder how to write a good sentence." --R.F. Kuang

"The Irish master." --New Yorker

"One of the best novelists in English." --The Guardian

"John Banville deserves his Booker Prize." --Los Angeles Times Book Review

"A grand writer with a seductive style." --New York Times Book Review

"Banville is a master at capturing the most fleeting memory or excruciating twinge of self-awareness with riveting accuracy." --People

"Prodigiously gifted. He cannot write an unpolished phrase." --The Independent

"[Banville's] books are like baroque cathedrals." --Paris Review

"One periodically rereads a [Banville] sentence just to marvel at its beauty." --USA TODAY