It’s a sunny, chilly Saturday morning, and we’re going to be heading out to the local farmers market soon, but I just finished a book last night that I wanted to tell you about before I started a new book and the impact of this one begins to lose its gravity.
Last week I read The Drowned by award-winning Irish author John Banville. This novel opens with a reclusive man, Denton Wymes, returning to his caravan after a day of fishing and coming upon an abandoned car in the middle of a field. He knows he shouldn’t get involved, but against his better judgement, he heads towards the vehicle. As he is about to leave, a man runs towards him claiming that his wife has drowned in the sea, or maybe she hasn’t drowned, but she’s missing. Trying to extricate himself from the situation, Wymes indicates the big house up the lane, but this man wants Wymes to accompany him. What follows is the search for this missing woman by DI Strafford, along with Detective Crowley, a man well past retirement and a nasty piece of work, as well as a whole cast of unique and interesting characters. I was intrigued by this book, as I associate Banville with Booker-Prize-winning literary fiction, and this plot seemed to focus on the search for a missing woman, so more mystery, less literari-ness. But I was surprised to learn that this literary master is also the author of a whole series of mysteries featuring Strafford and his pathologist colleague, Dr Quirke, written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. It appears that Banville has revealed his true identity and brought together his two halves, first in The Lock-Up, and now in The Drowned. It was a literary tour de force, managing to successfully blend these two genres together, keeping this reader on the edge of my seat and making time to read more because I wanted to know what happens next, yet imbuing every word with significance. This novel was a deep-dive into the darker side of human nature and motivation, and an exploration into the human condition. It was not an uplifting book in any way, but the glimmer of hope at the end, while faint, somehow took the edge off my initial feeling of despair. I’m now intrigued to read the Benjamin Black books, and have made a list so I can try to find them at the used book stores and read them in order. I’m always excited to discover a new mystery series, and if The Drowned is anything to go by, this one will not disappoint.
That’s all for today. Stay warm and keep reading!
Bye for now... Julie
