A review by margaret21
The Lock-Up by John Banville

4.0

We're in 1950s Dublin, some six months after Banville's April in Spain too place. A young women has apparently asphyxiated herself in her car a lock-up garage. It becomes apparent it's a murder. As ever, though the whole of the book is on the surface an account of the efforts to solve the crime and find the perpetrator, actually, that's not the reason to read it. Instead, it's about the more-than-prickly relationship between DI Strafford and police pathologist Dr. Quirke, about the complicated love affairs both men have in 1950s Dublin, still under the somewhat puritanical stranglehold of the Catholic church. And this extends to its influence over police investigations as well as moral arbitration. It's about the weather, the greyness of Dublin. And it's about simply enjoying Banville's luscious writing. So many reasons to read and appreciate this book!