Though Black makes an occasional American cultural blooper, he keeps divulging surprises to the last page so that the reader is simultaneously shocked and satisfied. At the start, the novel has the spare melancholy of early James Joyce, describing a Dublin of private clubs, Merrion Square townhouses and the occasional horse-drawn cart as the plot heats up and the action shifts to Boston, Mass., it becomes more of a standard detective story. Malachy, a righty, is writing left-handed, as he reports that the young Christine died of an embolism. Malachy Griffin, an obstetrician, is filing a bogus autopsy report on Christine Falls, a new corpse in Quirk’s lab. And the deeper Quirke delves into the mystery, the more it seems to implicate his own family and the Catholic church. Then, author Benjamin Black moves to Quirke’s pathology lab, where Dr. Soon it appears the entire establishment is in denial over Christine's mysterious demise and in a conspiracy that recalls the classic film Chinatown Quirke is pulled into the case when he confronts his stepbrother, physician Malachy Griffin, who's altering Christine's file at the city morgue. CHRISTINE FALLS is Banville's debut crime novel, a complex, dark and compelling work that is mysterious and quietly horrifying. Blacks books include The Black-Eyed Blonde, Christine Falls, The Silver. In this expertly paced debut thriller from Irish author Black (the pseudonym of Booker Prize–winner John Banville), pathologist Garret Quirke uncovers a web of corruption in 1950s Dublin surrounding the death in childbirth of a young maid, Christine Falls. Benjamin Black is the pen name of John Banville, a critically acclaimed author who is well known in literary fiction circles. Benjamin Black is the pen name of the Man Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville.

Christine falls by benjamin black