Quirke's latest case leads him inexorably toward the dark machinations of an old foe, in the latest from "one of the most imaginative literary novelists writing in the English language today" (The Washington Post)

Perhaps Quirke has been down among the dead too long. Lately the Dublin pathologist has suffered hallucinations and blackouts, and he fears the cause is a brain tumor. A specialist diagnoses an old head...

Quirke's latest case leads him inexorably toward the dark machinations of an old foe, in the latest from "one of the most imaginative literary novelists writing in the English language today" (The Washington Post)

Perhaps Quirke has been down among the dead too long. Lately the Dublin 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 when a body turns up, any possibility of rest vanishes...

The corpse is discovered in a crashed car one hot June night. 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; 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 deep in 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--John Banville's seventh novel featuring the endlessly fascinating Quirke--is a story of surpassing intensity and surprising beauty.