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    Even the Dead: A Quirke Novel
    Even the Dead: A Quirke Novel
    Even the Dead: A Quirke Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    Even the Dead: A Quirke Novel

    Written by Benjamin Black

    Narrated by John Keating

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A suspicious death, a pregnant woman suddenly gone missing: Quirke's latest case leads him inexorably toward the dark machinations of an old foe

    Perhaps Quirke has been down among the dead too long. Lately the Irish pathologist has suffered hallucinations and blackouts, and he fears the cause is a brain tumor. A specialist diagnoses an old head injury caused by a savage beating; all that's needed, the doctor declares, is an extended rest. But Quirke, ever intent on finding his place among the living, is not about to retire.

    One night during a June heat wave, a car crashes into a tree in central Dublin and bursts into flames. The police assume the driver's death was either an accident or a suicide, but Quirke's examination of the body leads him to believe otherwise. Then his daughter Phoebe gets a mysterious visit from an acquaintance: the woman, who admits to being pregnant, says she fears for her life, though she won't say why. When the woman later disappears, Phoebe asks her father for help, and Quirke in turn seeks the assistance of his old friend Inspector Hackett. Before long the two men find themselves untangling a twisted string of events that takes them deep into a shadowy world where one of the city's most powerful men uses the cover of politics and religion to make obscene profits.

    Even the Dead    --Benjamin Black's seventh novel featuring the endlessly fascinating Quirke--is a story of surpassing intensity and surprising beauty.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateJan 12, 2016
    ISBN9781427262561
    Even the Dead: A Quirke Novel
    Author

    Benjamin Black

    Dr Benjamin Black is a descendent of Iranian, Jewish, and British roots. His family heritage of persecution and forced migration led him to a career in medical humanitarian relief. He is a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist based in London and a specialist advisor to international aid organisations, including Médecins Sans Frontières, government departments, academic institutions, and UN bodies. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic he provided frontline healthcare to pregnant women and supported the development of international guidelines. Benjamin teaches medical teams around the world on improving sexual and reproductive health care to the most vulnerable people in the most challenging of environments.

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    Reviews for Even the Dead

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    • 4/5
      EVEN THE DEAD by Benjamin BlackI have never read any of B. Black’s (aka John Banville) series of Quirke novels.The main character, Quirke, is a pathologist in Dublin who helps the local police solve crimes. In this installment he is nearing the end of his career, temporarily out of work due to an unspecified vague condition that resulted in loss of concentration and drive. As the book opens he is a guest at his step-brother’s manor, trying to figure out what his future holds.Quirke is, indeed, an interesting character. As he is depicted he is still a desirable chap to the women, a seasoned pathologist, a failed husband, widower and half-assed father to his daughter who was raised by relatives. Indeed, she is also involved with the junior pathologist who has taken over Quirke’s responsibilities.His daughter, Phoebe, is innocently thrust into a murder investigation. As the tale unfolds, Quirke, his daughter, his Inspector colleague Hackett are all involved. His daughter’s boss, a plump attractive psychiatrist becomes enamored with Quirke. There are hoodlums, well connected pols and clergy who are presented as the bad guys.An enjoyable read despite never having read an earlier Quirke book I had no trouble jumping in and being entertained.
    • 4/5
      Even the Dead is the seventh of Benjamin Black’s Quirke books, a series that began in 2006 with Christine Falls (published in the U.S. in 2007), the book that first introduced the Dublin pathologist to the world. And, as befits a man whose life is the subject of six previous crime novels, Quirke is a man with a past, and it is a rather complicated past, at that. But because Even the Dead is my introduction to Quirke, I’ve had to piece that past together as best I can from what the one book reveals. I gather that Quirke is a man with a drinking problem bad enough to impress even those who set their drinking standards by the norms of Dublin’s drinkers. But he has an even bigger problem than that one because a severe beating he endured several years earlier has come back to haunt him. In recent months, hallucinations, problems staying in the moment, and other concentration difficulties have made it impossible for him to do his job. Quirke’s personal life is nothing to write home about either. Quirke is a widower who, in his immediate grief at the loss of his wife, asked his half-brother to adopt and raise his new daughter, Phoebe, as his own child. And now, all these years later (the books are set in the early-to-mid 1950s), even though Phoebe knows the truth about her parentage, Quirke’s relationship with his daughter is more one of uncle-niece than father-daughter. Simply put, Quirke is not a happy man, and after a brain specialist tells him that his latest setbacks are the result of too much sitting around, combined with “nervous tension,” he is a frustrated man as well as an unhappy one. So when invited to give his opinion on the head injury found on the corpse of a young man who burned to death inside his sports car after slamming it into a tree, Quirke jumps at the chance to get back in the game. Now, convinced that the young man’s death is neither an accident nor a suicide, Quirke and his longtime friend Inspector Hackett want to know who killed him and why they did it. Even the Dead is an intensely atmospheric look at a city, and a country, still very much under the thumb of the Catholic Church of its day. 1950s Dublin, at least as Benjamin Black portrays it, is a city whose most powerful figure is the Archbishop, a man everyone else with any pretense of power strives to keep happy. The church controls more than the souls of Dublin’s people, it controls everything about their daily lives. And the man calling the shots for the church shows them little mercy. A lot of dirty money is being made by a lot of dirty people.Now Quirke and Hackett need to find a way to stop them.(And now I need to go back and read the first six Quirke books because Quirke is a man I want to know more about.)
    • 5/5
      Let me say first of all that I haven't read all the titles in this series (see the list below). While EVEN THE DEAD is not a stand alone, there is enough background detail in it to assist the new reader, and perhaps to encourage them to read previous titles.Quirke has not been in to work for some months but his assistant feels in serious need of his opinion about the death in a burning car in Phoenix Park. This appears to be the prompt that Quirke needs to get back to work but even then he does not appear to take up the reins full time. He in turn consults his friend Inspector Hackett and they pursue the clues as they arise.There is a lot of exploration of relationships: Quirke's with his own daughter Phoebe, Phoebe's own with her new boss, Quirke's with his half brother Malachy Griffin, new friendships, and eventually Quirke gets confirmation of his own parentage.Another good read, and another author for you to look for if you haven't already "discovered" him.
    • 4/5
      One of the best Quirke stories.
    • 4/5
      One must always remind oneself that the books are set in the 1950s. Plus, for this one, it helps to know the others, because there are some privat things in Quirke´s life going on.The case: One night a car crashes into a tree in central Dublin and bursts into flames. Quirke's examination of the body leads him to believe that it was murder. Quirke´s daughter Phoebe gets a mysterious visit, a young woman, who has been in this car crash and says she fears for her life. Phoebe helps this young woman, but she disappears.Quirke and Hackett discover one of the city's most powerful men who uses the cover of politics and religion to make obscene profits.The book is very well written, but not exciting enough.
    • 4/5
      A return to form for Banville, writing as Black. I had stopped reading these, finding the series growing stale, but this one, while traipsing the same ground, seems pacier and better. Enjoyable and recommendable.
    • 4/5
      Black’s Quirke novels excel in mood, character development, setting and especially the writing. Unlike others in the crime/detective genre, they are more meditative than thrilling. No shots are fired in EVEN THE DEAD; there are few thrilling plot twists; the pace is slow and the plot seems to drift along at a pleasant pace. The story is simple enough: The son of a rabble-rousing socialist dies in a car crash under suspicious circumstances; the only witness to the accident is the victim’s pregnant lover, who mysteriously disappears; the victim was investigating adoptions by a Catholic charity and powerful political figures who are connected to the Church want to suppress his findings. It is not difficult to see where all of this is leading, but the process of discovery is delicious.One of the joys of reading a Quirke novel is the complex nature of their protagonist and the cast of interesting characters surrounding him. Quirke is complex and enigmatic. He is a loner who choses to work with the dead, seemingly uncomfortable with most living and breathing people. In this novel, the opinionated Quirke is resting from some unspecified brain lesion, living temporarily and uncomfortably with his stepbrother and his sly spouse, with whom Quirke once had a one-night stand. While struggling with withdrawals from both alcohol and his work, Quirke is seduced—never a man to shy away from a mystery— into this case by his daughter Phoebe, who attempted to help the young woman who witnessed the accident and by David Sinclair, Phoebe’s boyfriend and Quirke’s pathologist colleague. He enlists the help of his trusty sidekick, Inspector Hackett, who is now retired and eager for a new mystery in his now quiet life. In addition to the central mystery, Black gives Quirke a romantic fling with Phoebe’s boss, an intelligent psychiatrist, who helps him to understand issues in the case as well as in his own dark past. Mixed in among all of this fascinating human interaction, Black’s narrative wonderfully evokes Dublin in the 1950’s with all of its cheerless repression. Corruption and collusion between the Church and politicians is rife; the pubs are smoky and crowded; many of the buildings are in disrepair; and—to make matters worse—the city is having a record heat wave. As always, Black’s writing evokes a dark mood in both the city and Quirke. Moral ambiguity is pervasive but mixed in with all of this opacity are occasional glimmers of light for both Quirke and Dublin.
    • 3/5
      This is definitely an above average crime novel, though as Benjamin Black is a pseudonym used by leading Irish contemporary novelist, and Booker Prize winner, John Bainville, that is no surprise. The Benjamin Black novels are set in Dublin in the 1950s and feature querulous, borderline alcoholic, pathologist Dr Quirke and Detective Inspector Hackett.Bainville’s literary credentials shine through, however, and the characters are marvellously drawn. Quirke is a generally lugubrious character, battling with demons arising from his past and compounded by his weakness for liquor, and his melancholy pervades the whole book. As the novel opens he is on leave of absence, recovering from a serious assault (incurred during the previous book in the series) and attempting to dry out, leaving his deputy to run the pathology laboratory. He, however, when faced with the autopsy of a young civil servant found in a burnt out car that apparently crashed in Phoenix Park, calls on his boss for a second opinion.Energised by this summons to help, Quirke agrees with his assistant’s judgement that there was more to the victim’s injuries than could be explained by a road accident. A police investigation ensues, and uncovers dark secrets at the heart of Dublin society. Bainville/Black conjures a compelling air of menace, intensified by Dr Quirke’s own predicaments.Despite the gloom (and there is absolutely no hint of levity at any point), the novel races along. Bainville/Black understands how to construct a plot and delivers a sound one here.
    • 5/5
      Another series I can't get enough of. Starting with Christine Falls, Benjamin Black (who also writes as John Banville) has developed a character that takes hold of the reader in a way that you want to follow him - even into the depths of darkness. If you haven't read any of this series, please start with Christine Falls. You won't be disappointed.
    • 4/5
      Even the Dead: A Quirke Novel by Benjamin Black is a nice soft British mystery. It is soft in a way only British novels can be. It held my interest, as much due to the likable characters as for the story.There is more than one story, actually. There are several stores interwoven and each depends on the other for substance. This is accomplished deftly. Will I follow, the series? To be honest, I doubt that I will at this time. I am looking for something different in my reads right now. But it certainly wasn't a waste of time. I say give it a try to find out why the young man died, what is going to happen to Phoebe and her friend, if anything. And of course there is a little romance. To see how that turns out, give it a try.
    • 4/5
      So it turns out that John Banville can write mysteries that are just about as good as his novels. Writing as Benjamin Black, his character Quirke, a pathologist, is a fascinating physician/detective. The people that inhabit this book are equally as important as the crime to be solved. You know you are in Ireland and that the weather is important to the book as well. Benjamin Black's prose is lovely. I'll be reading more in this series.
    • 4/5
      like a 3.7 rounded up to a 4. Thanks, LT and thank you to Henry Holt for my copy.Even the Dead is number seven in Black's (aka John Banville) Quirke series which begins with Christine Falls, one of my favorites in the entire series. My guess is that Even the Dead just might be the last Quirke novel -- there is just something I gleaned from the story that makes me feel that way. If not, we'll say I'm wrong and call it a day, but to me it just has that last-of-series feeling. This one is a bit more subdued than the other Quirke novels -- not nearly as dark in tone but still quite good. And it is a must read for anyone who's been following this series. Set in "mean and mendacious" Dublin of the 1950s, a city where the small group behind the powers that be maintain control through a mix of religion, politics, and money, Even the Dead opens with a dead man on the pathologist's slab, being worked on by Dr. David Sinclair, Quirke's assistant and the guy Quirke's daughter Phoebe's been seeing for a while now. Chief pathologist Quirke is not even at the hospital but rather convalescing from events that started in an earlier story. The police are certain that the body belongs to a suicide, but Sinclair thinks otherwise and to be sure, he reluctantly calls his boss in for a consultation. It is actually just what Quirke needs -- being back at work -- and he puts his recovery time aside and goes back to work. The dead man, Leon Corless, is the son of a very well-known Communist agitator (this is the 1950s, remember), and Quirke confirms Sinclair's findings that this was no mere accident and definitely not suicide. While Quirke is getting back into his post-convalescent swing, Phoebe has an adventure of her own when she is contacted by a former classmate who confides to Phoebe that she is both pregnant and in very serious danger. Phoebe barely remembers her, but sensing that the girl is completely in earnest, she hides her away at a family home. Phoebe turns to her father, who turns to his friend Inspector Hackett for help both on the Corless case and on the girl's disappearance -- and it isn't long until they discover that the two cases just might be related.As always in this series of novels, Black's writing is tip-top -- he has a way of not only creating a clever plot but also characters that manage to stay under my skin and make me impatient for the next installment, especially in the main character Quirke, who was driven by "an absence of a past," and who "... was aware of no great thirst in himself for justice and the righting of wrongs"with"...no illusions that the world could be set to rights, at least not by him, who could not even set right his own life." However, as the story continues and Quirke's present crosses his past, things begin to change, leading to an extremely powerful ending I never saw coming. Even though (in my opinion) Even the Dead is not as dark nor as particularly in depth as its predecessors, there is still a deep, underlying noirish current that runs throughout the story, which certainly kept me turning pages to see where Black was going to take things. I love this entire series and this newest book did not disappoint. I would truly hate to see this series end, but as I said earlier, it's written so that it feels like it might just be the last -- here's hoping it's not. Who's going to like this book? Certainly readers who've followed the series in order up to now, and readers who enjoy the darker side of crime and characters without going to the darker extreme of true noir. Cozy fans stay away -- there is nothing, I repeat, nothing even remotely cutesy or nice in this entire book. Also, since much of this book strays into Quirke's past, it would be doing oneself a disservice to start the series with this novel -- each and every book should really be read in publication order. As long as Banville continues to write as Benjamin Black, I'll continue reading what has turned out to be one of my very favorite series of crime novels ever. I hope I'm in for much, much more.
    • 4/5
      In terms of storyline, "Even the Dead" is something of a follow-up to "Holy Orders" and "Christine Falls." Likewise, the characters in the Quirke series evolve in this novel. A few appear to be exiting the series while new introductions are had. As usual, the mystery itself is not entirely a whodunit, but about unraveling the motives of a crime while deciding how to handle the consequences of that crime. Meanwhile, the main characters have touching insights into what has made them who they are.I can see the series ending pleasantly with this entry, but I suspect the author is moving some long-term characters whose time has come aside, while preparing further entries with new characters who have something fresh to offer. If so, I found the choices about which characters to wind down very understandable, since the series while enjoyable to me had let a kind of staleness wander in. I particularly enjoyed the short but sweet introduction of Ms. Hackett.In my opinion, this is one of the better recent entries in the series.
    • 4/5
      This is the seventh Dr Quirke story written by Benjamin Black, a pen name of Booker award winner John Banville. I have to admit this is the first Quirke adventure I've read, (I do have Christine Falls, Quirkes first adventure, unread on my bookshelf. That book immediately shoot to the top of my "to read" list. The current tome finds Quirke convalescing at his brothers, having suffered from hallucinations stemming from a previous story. Quirke, a pathologist in Dublin is asked by his former assistant to examine a recent death. A son of a notorious communist has been found burned to death after a late night car accident. Quirke find circumstances that indicate foul play. He then is approached by his daughter Phoebe, who tells a tale of a former classmate approaching her claiming to be in terrible danger, asking for help. Phoebe assists the young woman, who subsequently disappears, Quirke and his cohort Inspector Hackett begin an investigation. Btw, the missing girl has ties to the dead man. I believe this novel is set in 50's Ireland, There are family secrets, a powerful adversary, a new love for Quirke, and the Catholic church. Quirke and Hackett are richly described, fleshed out characters, and the supporting actors are interesting. I must admit to being a fan of Irish novelists, and Black/Banville is no exception. If you havn't explored this series before, you'll immediately want to start at the beginning.
    • 4/5
      Reading this novel with "The Lost Child of Philomena Lee" still fresh in my mind was interesting since Black (Banville) keeps returning to the past practice of giving babies for adoption in return for donations to Catholic Church organizations. This has been a plot device in every one of the Quirke novels I have read, but the author keeps each novel new, and his latest one is no exception. That said, Black/Banville continues to revisit familiar territory without letting the terrain grow stale. Partly this is because his characters grow, and partly I think because he is such a good writer. Many of his novels published under his own name share a similarity of themes which somehow never become repetitive. A good book to read when you want a mystery, but I think it might help to have read one or two of the earlier novels in this series.
    • 5/5
      I had read the first two of the Quirke novels, starting with Christine Falls, and I hadn't realized how many more of them there are. Based on my experience with this one, I plan to go back and read them all. Once again the primary attraction is Quirke himself, perceptive but occasionally blind, unfiltered but generously considerate. His poor health is a metaphor for his unfinished sense of self, his difficulty in maintaining many satisfying relationships, and his struggle to stay sober. These relationships, with his daughter Phoebe and Phoebe's boss, with his friend the detective Hackett, and especially with his (step-brother? half-brother?) Malachi Griffin and Mal's wife Rose, are endlessly fascinating. We watch Quirke deal with the identity of his father, watch his dear friend Mal coping with the discovery that he is dying, and develop a new relationship with a woman. To me, these relationships transcend the plot and solving the mystery.A mystery there is, however; a young man is found dead in his car, which has crashed into a tree. Quirke's pathology assistant, who is also Phoebe's lover, asks Quirke to review the case with him, spurring Quirke to return to work and pursue his suspicions with Hackett. At the same time, an old acquaintance approaches Phoebe but disappears after Phoebe helps her. Quirke and Hackett tease out connections between these events and the Catholic powers who rule certain aspects of Dublin life. The mystery itself is not as interesting as the characters; there are no significant red herrings or alternate explanations fro what has happened. It's just one more situation into which to throw Quirke.I was able to enjoy the book immensely even though I had not read its immediate predecessors in the series; it is not necessary to read the entire series in order. But I plan to go back and do just that, because I suspect that the richness of the volumes that I have read, and those that I have not, will be enriched by following the story as it evolves.
    • 3/5
      I've enjoyed John Banville writing as Benjamin Black -- his hero Dr Quirke is a fully drawn, intriguing character. However, the mystery in this one is not compelling enough for me. A man has been murdered, his girlfriend is terrified and disappears, and Quirke and his police officer friend Hackett will figure out what's going on. Along the way, Quirke discovers some things about his past which shock him but not the reader. The biggest worry, as always in this series, is will Quirke stay on the wagon.
    • 3/5
      John Banville (writing as Benjamin Black) is a very talented writer. He creates worlds and characters that ring true, and have multiple layers to explore. His Quirke series of mysteries set in 1950’s Dublin are brilliant in their descriptions and characterizations of the time and the place. The latest entry “Even the Dead” is a mystery I suppose, but one that spends most of its time not really dealing with the matter at hand. As with a trend starting with “Vengeance” the plot deals more with the day to day issues surrounding Dr. Quirke and less with the mystery itself. I must say I still enjoy the series quite a lot, but folks expecting a vigorous murder mystery will be disappointed. The mystery aspect was lacking any real urgency, and mined villain’s from books past without any real relish. But Banville still crafts a delightful story regardless, and it is the sign of a great writer I think that he can keep you reading and interested when the plot itself is not all that grand. He has crafted a world and characters that feel familiar and comforting, the mystery can be overlooked when you just enjoy peeking into Quirke’s life again.
    • 3/5
      This is the first in this series of books featuring the pathologist , Dr. Quirke, that I have read. So I am unable to comment on the place this book has in an on going series. The setting is Dublin and the time seems to be the Fifties. The time is a guess taken from context clues. The murder to be solved is not a complex mystery, in fact it seems pretty obvious, once you get into the story. The writing is excellent, the story drags in the beginning but gets better. The characters are so very well drawn that I am ready to go back and read the rest of this series and find out more about them.Read as an ARC from LibraryThing.
    • 4/5
      I've read all of the Quirke series, and this one was as consistently enjoyable though noticeably less dark than the others. I recommend for Black/Banville's mastery of dialogue alone, and would suggest starting at the beginning of the series to appreciate the evolution of the cast of characters.