Staff Pick
This traditional mystery threatens to become much more. It's the 1950s in Ireland, and the Catholic Church stands against any truth the police might uncover in the untimely murder of a priest. Recommended By Doug C., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
The incomparable
Booker Prize winner's next great crime novel — the story of a family
whose secrets resurface when a parish priest is found murdered in their
ancestral home.
Detective Inspector St. John Strafford
has been summoned to County Wexford to investigate a murder. A parish
priest has been found dead in Ballyglass House, the family seat of the
aristocratic, secretive Osborne family.
The year is 1957 and the Catholic Church rules Ireland with an
iron fist. Strafford — flinty, visibly Protestant and determined to
identify the murderer — faces obstruction at every turn, from the heavily
accumulating snow to the culture of silence in the tight-knit community
he begins to investigate.
As he delves further, he learns the Osbornes are not at all what
they seem. And when his own deputy goes missing, Strafford must work to
unravel the ever-expanding mystery before the community's secrets, like
the snowfall itself, threaten to obliterate everything.
Beautifully crafted, darkly evocative and pulsing with suspense,
Snow is "the Irish master" (New Yorker) John Banville at his page-turning best.
Review
"[A] deceptively complex mystery with literary flourishes....[A] brilliant mix of old tropes and sadly modern evil." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"The sinister and unnerving Snow has all the trimmings of a classic country house mystery — body in the library, closed circle of suspects, foul weather — all elevated by Banville's immaculate, penetrating prose." Peter Swanson
Review
"The first mystery Banville
has written under his own name, rather than as Benjamin Black, Snow
stars a crusty Protestant detective investigating a murder in County
Wexford, buried in endless snow." Library Journal
About the Author
John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. The author of thirteen previous novels, he has been the recipient of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, and a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. He lives in Dublin.