The Quirke series of
crime novels, written by
Irish novelist John Banville
William John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Proust, via Nabokov", Banville himself maintains that W. B. Yeats and Henry J ...
under the
pen name
A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
A pen na ...
Benjamin Black, centers on the titular character, a pathologist in 1950s Dublin. The series is published by
Henry Holt & Co. in the U.S.. The first novel, ''Christine Falls'', was first released by
Picador
A ''picador'' (; pl. ''picadores'') is one of the pair of horse-mounted bullfighters in a Spanish-style bullfight that jab the bull with a lance. They perform in the ''tercio de varas'', which is the first of the three stages in a stylized bullf ...
in the U.K. in 2006; it was published in the U.S. a year later.
Banville has stated that he drew from his experiences when he first moved to Dublin to inform the Quirke series:
The final novel in the series ''April in Spain'' features the character St. John Strafford, who is also a character in other Banville works.
Television adaptation
A three-part miniseries based on the novels stars
Gabriel Byrne as Quirke. The series first aired on
RTÉ One
RTÉ One ( ga, RTÉ a hAon) is an Irish free-to-air flagship television channel owned and operated by Raidió TeilifÃs Éireann (RTÉ). It is the most-popular and most-watched television channel in the country and was launched as ''TelefÃs à ...
in Ireland in early 2014, and later that year on
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...
in the UK.
Books
# ''Christine Falls'' (2007)
# ''The Silver Swan'' (2008)
# ''Elegy for April'' (2010)
# ''A Death in Summer'' (2011)
# ''Vengeance'' (2012)
# ''Holy Orders'' (2013)
# ''Even the Dead'' (2016)
# ''April in Spain'' (2021)
References
External links
Website for Benjamin Black
2006 Irish novels
Novels by John Banville
Irish crime novels
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