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Elegy for April: A Novel Audiobook
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(2.88) - 16 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
Quirke—the hard-drinking, insatiably curious Dublin pathologist—is back, and he's determined to find his daughter's best friend, a well-connected young doctor
April Latimer has vanished. A junior doctor at a local hospital, she is something of a scandal in the conservative and highly patriarchal society of 1950s Dublin. Though her family is one of the most respected in the city, she is known for being independent-minded; her taste in men, for instance, is decidedly unconventional.
Now April has disappeared, and her friend Phoebe Griffin suspects the worst. Frantic, Phoebe seeks out Quirke, her brilliant but erratic father, and asks him for help. Sober again after intensive treatment for alcoholism, Quirke enlists his old sparring partner, Detective Inspector Hackett, in the search for the missing young woman. In their separate ways the two men follow April's trail through some of the darker byways of the city to uncover crucial information on her whereabouts. And as Quirke becomes deeply involved in April's murky story, he encounters complicated and ugly truths about family savagery, Catholic ruthlessness, and race hatred.
Both an absorbing crime novel and a brilliant portrait of the difficult and relentless love between a father and his daughter, this is Benjamin Black at his sparkling best.
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"I liked this one better than the first two. The plotting was a little better, there was much more humor, and the language is still a delight. "
— Jenifer (4 out of 5 stars)
Elegy for April Listener Reviews
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" So disappointing! I was so excited to find a book about a pathologist...oh well! "
— Tonya, 6/3/2011 -
" The author is wonderfully descriptive, but there was too much description and not enough plot. "
— John, 5/20/2011 -
" Benjamin Black is not the writer John Banville is. "
— Cindy, 5/11/2011 -
" This was my first Benjamin Black book and I agree with others that there really wasn't much of a plot in this one but I did enjoy the main characters, mainly Quirk. "
— Collette, 4/7/2011 -
" this is third in a mystery series written by John Banfield under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. His main character is likeable but stuggling with his own demons. Good read! "
— Sandy, 3/25/2011 -
" Good fast paced atmospheric mystery. Not as thickly plotted as Christine Falls but still good. "
— Denali, 3/22/2011 -
" A decent Irish mystery that felt more like it took place in London. "
— Paula, 2/6/2011
About the Authors
Benjamin Black is the pen name of the Man Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville.
John Banville is the author of more than twenty novels, as well as nonfiction and plays. Time Pieces was a New York Times bestseller, and The Sea won the 2005 Booker Prize. He has also won the Franz Kafka Prize, the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Best Novel, and the Prince of Asturias Award, Spain’s most important literary prize. He was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945, and lives in Dublin.
About Timothy Dalton
Timothy Dalton is perhaps best known for his critically-acclaimed incarnation of James Bond in The Living Daylights and License to Kill. A classically trained Shakespearean actor, he has appeared in films including The Tourist and in television miniseries including Scarlett (in which he played Rhett Butler), Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and in countless Shakespearean films and plays. He is also the voice of Mr. Pricklepants, a character in the animated film Toy Story 3. He is a longtime reader of thrillers written by Booker Prize winner John Banville, writing as Benjamin Black, including Christine Falls, which garnered an AudioFile Earphones Award. AudioFile magazine described Timothy’s reading of The Silver Swan, also written by Benjamin Black and published by Macmillan Audio, as “so good it will make listeners giddy with delight…As the heavy-drinking Irish pathologist Quirke, Dalton offers a pitch-perfect Irish brogue. It’s all thrilling, honest, and raw.”