The Lock-Up - (Strafford and Quirke) by John Banville (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

*NATIONAL BESTSELLER*
A New York Times Editors' Choice

Booker Prize winner and "Irish master" (The New Yorker) John Banville's most ambitious crime novel yet brings two detectives together to solve a globe-spanning mystery

In 1950s Dublin, Rosa Jacobs, a young history scholar, is found dead in her car. Renowned pathologist Dr. Quirke and DI St. John Strafford begin to investigate the death as a murder, but it's the victim's older sister Molly, an established journalist, who discovers a lead that could crack open the case.

One of Rosa's friends, it turns out, is from a powerful German family that arrived in Ireland under mysterious circumstances shortly after World War II. But as Quirke and Strafford close in, their personal lives may put the case--and everyone involved--in peril, including Quirke's own daughter.

Spanning the mountaintops of Italy, the front lines of World War II Bavaria, the gritty streets of Dublin and other unexpected locales, The Lock-Up is an ambitious and arresting mystery by one of the world's most celebrated authors.

Review Quotes

"Elegant...with finely wrought moments that make you want to slow down to savor them."--New York Times Book Review

"Another worthy thriller from the Irish master novelist."--Kirkus

"Strikingly beautiful prose...Banville's complete mastery of mood wins the day."--Booklist

"A haunting and memorable experience."--New York Journal of Books

"Banville at his best...a novel that will have his readers hooked."--Financial Times

"The Lock-Up is to be relished above all for its richly realised characters, and their understanding of the vagaries of human nature."―Scotsman

"The ultimate page-turner, expertly paced and beautifully written."―Irish Independent

"A hypnotic thriller. . . with prose this lush and mordantly funny, it's a shame it has to end."― Sunday Business Post

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