John Banville Book order (chronological)

Set against a richly atmospheric backdrop, this new mystery features the beloved characters Strafford and Quirke. The story promises to engage readers with its intricate plot and compelling twists, characteristic of the author's bestselling style. Fans of previous works will find familiar themes woven throughout, creating a captivating narrative that blends suspense with depth.

In this atmospheric murder mystery set in 1950s rural Ireland, a loner discovers an empty car and becomes involved in a missing person's case. Detective Inspector Strafford and his brilliant yet flawed ally, pathologist Quirke, are drawn into the investigation as they navigate their complex relationship.

Set in Victorian London, the story follows Asher Grey, the sole consulting exorcist, who navigates the mystical realm hidden beneath the mundane. Tasked with addressing supernatural disturbances, Asher grapples with the challenges of his profession, particularly the struggle to attract paying clients. The narrative blends elements of the supernatural with the trials of a unique vocation, highlighting the tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary.

1950s Dublin, in a lock-up garage in the city, the body of a young woman is discovered, an apparent suicide. But pathologist Dr Quirke and Detective Inspector Strafford soon suspect foul play.The victim's sister, a newspaper reporter from London, returns to Dublin to join the two men in their quest to uncover the truth. But, as they explore her links to a wealthy German family in County Wicklow, and to investigative work she may have been doing in Israel, they are confronted with an ever-deepening mystery. With relations between the two men increasingly strained, and their investigation taking them back to the final days of the Second World War, can they join the pieces of a hidden puzzle?

Courage meets crisis in a doctor's extraordinary true account on the frontlines of maternal healthcare during a deadly epidemic in Sierra Leone. In May 2014, Dr. Benjamin Black finds himself at the centre of the Ebola outbreak, grappling with the highest maternal mortality rate globally amid a new, invisible threat. From the life-and-death decisions on the maternity ward to moral dilemmas in the Ebola Treatment Centers, every moment is a crossroads where a single choice could tip the balance between survival and catastrophe. The tension is palpable, and the stakes are unimaginably high. One mistake, one error of judgment, could spell disaster. Belly Woman is a powerful piece of reportage and advocacy that draws parallels between two global outbreaks of infectious diseases: Ebola and COVID-19. Black's firsthand experience on the frontlines of a global health crisis bears witness to the raw emotions, tough decisions, such as the need to carry out medically-mandated abortions to save lives, and the unwavering dedication that defines the lives of those who step up when the world needs them most. A compelling read for those with an interest in medical memoirs, social justice, and humanitarianism, as well as healthcare professionals and maternal health caregivers.

From the Booker Prize-winning John Banville comes a playful, multilayered novel of nostalgia, life and death, and quantum theory. A man with a borrowed name steps from a flashy red sports car―also borrowed―onto the estate of his youth. But all is not as it seems. There is a new family living in the drafty old house: the Godleys, descendants of the late, world-famous scientist Adam Godley, whose theory of existence threw the universe into chaos. And this mystery man, who has just completed a prison sentence, feels as if time has stopped, or was torn, or was opened in new and strange ways. He must now vie with the idiosyncratic Godley family, with their harried housekeeper who becomes his landlady, with the recently commissioned biographer of Godley Sr., and with a wealthy and beautiful woman from his past who comes bearing an unusual request. With sparkling intelligence and rapier wit, John Banville revisits some of his career's most memorable figures, in a novel as mischievous as it is brilliantly conceived.

Irresistible, sun-kissed follow up to the top ten bestseller Snow, from the Booker Prize winning author.

It is 1940 and the bombs are falling thick and fast on London. The royal family must do all they can to assure the British public of their solidarity. But what of the two young princesses - Elizabeth and Margaret? How can they be kept safe without jeopardizing morale in the capital?

**THE DROWNED - THE CHILLING NEW STRAFFORD & QUIRKE MURDER MYSTERY - AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Outstanding.' Irish Independent 'Exquisite.' Daily Mail 'Hypnotic.' Financial Times 'This is crime fiction for the connoisseur.' The Times 'The body is in the library,' Colonel Osborne said. 'Come this way.' Detective Inspector St John Strafford is called in from Dublin to investigate a murder at Ballyglass House - the Co. Wexford family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family. Facing obstruction from all angles, Strafford carries on determinedly in his pursuit of the murderer. However, as the snow continues to fall over this ever-expanding mystery, the people of Ballyglass are equally determined to keep their secrets. 'A typically elegant country house mystery.' Guardian 'A well-crafted story, peopled by superbly well-drawn characters, and put together in the finest prose . . . Masterly.' Irish Independent

Eine Ode an die Stadt Dublin. Ein sehr persönlicher Dublin-Stadtführer und zugleich eine autobiographische Reise des großen irischen Schriftstellers und Man Booker Prize-Trägers John Banville an ganz besondere Orte in der Sehnsuchtsstadt seiner Kindheit. Geboren und aufgewachsen in Wexford durfte John Banville als Kind an seinem Geburtstag die exzentrische Lieblingstante in Dublin besuchen – das für ihn so zu einem Ort der Verheißungen wurde. Nachdem er als Erwachsener dorthin gezogen war, sah Banville Dublin zwar mit realistischeren Augen, und doch blieb die Faszination, die die Stadt schon auf den Siebenjährigen ausgeübt hatte. In diesem Buch führt Banville den Leser zu bekannten und weniger bekannten Plätzen. Dabei verwebt er die Erinnerungen, die sich an bestimmte Straßen und Gebäude knüpfen, mit einer großen Kenntnis des Orts und seiner Geschichte. Das Ergebnis ist eine wunderbar eigenwillige Tour durch Dublin; eine zärtliche und imposante Ode an die Stadt und eine Fundgrube für alle Dublin-Reisenden. Ein Buch, genauso vielschichtig, reich, geistreich und überraschend wie die Romane des großen irischen Romanciers und Krimiautors.

Negli anni Trenta un gruppo di intellettuali e accademici inglesi dell’università di Cambridge, in nome dell’ideologia e della fede comunista, si mise al servizio dell’Unione Sovietica, dando vita a un gruppo di spie tra le più famose del secolo. Da questo fatto storico John Banville prende spunto per il suo intrigantissimo romanzo, nel quale il protagonista, Victor Maskell, ha i connotati di un noto personaggio che di quel gruppo fece parte: Sir Anthony Blunt, storico dell’arte e intimo frequentatore della famiglia reale. L’intoccabile è la storia di una vita giocata tra gli estremi della verità e della menzogna, della rispettabilità e del disonore. Una memorabile ricostruzione di un’epoca brillante e inquieta, un’affascinante spy-story in cui non manca una sconvolgente rivelazione finale.

A worthy sequel... His book is not only an impressive recreation of James's atmospheres and pacing, but also full of minor cliff-hangers and page-turning suspenses that keep you guessing Observer

'The emperor's mistress had been murdered, and the world had been taken hold of and turned upon its head' Prague, 1599. Christian Stern, a young doctor, has just arrived in the city. On his first evening, he finds a young woman's body half-buried in the snow. The dead woman is none other than the emperor's mistress, and there's no shortage of suspects. Stern is employed by the emperor himself to investigate the murder. In the search to find the culprit, Stern finds himself drawn into the shadowy world of the emperor's court - unspoken affairs, letters written in code, and bitter rivalries. But there's no turning back now...

Maybe it was time I forgot about Nico Peterson, and his sister, and the Cahuilla Club, and Clare Cavendish. Clare? The rest would be easy to put out of my mind, but not the black-eyed blonde . . . It is the early 1950s. In Los Angeles, Private Detective Philip Marlowe is as restless and lonely as ever, and business is a little slow. Then a new client arrives: young, beautiful, and expensively dressed, Clare Cavendish wants Marlowe to find her former lover, a man named Nico Peterson. Soon Marlowe will find himself not only under the spell of the Black-Eyed Blonde; but tangling with one of Bay Cityâe(tm)s richest families âe" and developing a singular appreciation for how far they will go to protect their fortune . . . In this gripping and deeply evocative crime novel, Benjamin Black returns us to the dark, mesmerising world of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye and his singular detective Philip Marlowe; one of the most iconic and enduringly popular detectives in crime fiction.

They leave so little trace, out lost ones. Oliver Orme used to be a painter, well known and well rewarded, but the muse has deserted him. He is also, as he confesses, a thief; he does not steal for gain, but for the thrill of possession, the need to capture and fix the world around him. His worst theft is Polly, the wife of his friend Marcus, with whom he has had an affair. When the affair is discovered, Oliver hides himself away in his childhood home and from here he tells the story of a year, from one autumn to the next. In his dazzling delineation of Oliver, John Banville has created one of the most memorable characters in recent fiction: compelling yet weak, desperate for love and yet inclined towards acts of terrible mischief. Set in a reimagined Ireland that is both familiar and deeply unsettling, The Blue Guitarreveals a life haunted by the desire to possess and always aware of the frailty of the human heart.

NO CRIME IS EVER TRULY BURIED... Visceral, gritty and cinematic, Even the Dead is the latest stylish thriller from John Banville's crime-writing alter ego, Benjamin Black. Pathologist Quirke works in the city morgue, watching over Dublin's dead. The latest to join their ghostly ranks is a suicide. But something doesn't add up. The victim has a suspicious head wound, and the only witness has vanished, every trace of her wiped away. On the trail of the missing woman, Quirke finds himself drawn into the shadowy world of Dublin's elite - secret societies, High Church politics and corrupt politicians. It leads him to a long-buried conspiracy that involves his own family. But it's too late to go back now... THE DEAD WILL BE HEARD 'Fresh and original' Guardian 'Quirke is human enough to swell the hardest of hearts' GQ 'A beach read for the brainy' LA Times 'Superb' Irish Times 'Beautifully written' Literary review 'Ravishing prose' Independent

She looked at him and smiled sadly. 'You've lived too long among the dead, Quirke,' she said. He nodded. 'Yes, I suppose I have.' She was not the first one to have told him that, and she would not be the last. 1950s Dublin. When a body is found in the canal, pathologist Quirke and his detective friend Inspector Hackett must find the truth behind this brutal murder. But in a world where the police are not trusted and secrets often remain buried there is perhaps little hope of bringing the perpetrator to justice. As spring storms descend on Dublin, Quirke and Hackett's investigation will lead them into the dark heart of the organisation that really runs this troubled city: the church. Meanwhile Quirke's daughter Phoebe realises she is being followed; and when Quirke's terrible childhood in a priest-run orphanage returns to haunt him, he will face his greatest trial yet . . .

Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe returns in award-winning author John Banville’s Marlowe—originally published as The Black-Eyed Blonde under the pen name Benjamin Black—the basis for the major motion picture starring Liam Neeson as the iconic detective. "Somewhere Raymond Chandler is smiling . . . I loved this book. It was like having an old friend, one you assumed was dead, walk into the room." —Stephen King "It was one of those Tuesday afternoons in summer when you wonder if the earth has stopped revolving." The streets of Bay City, California, in the early 1950s are as mean as they get. Marlowe is as restless and lonely as ever, and the private eye business is a little slow. Then a new client is shown in: blond, beautiful, and expensively dressed, she wants Marlowe to find her former lover. Almost immediately, Marlowe discovers that the man's disappearance is merely the first in a series of bewildering events. Soon he is tangling with one of Bay City's richest and most ruthless families—and developing a singular appreciation for how far they will go to protect their fortune. “It’s vintage L.A., toots: The hot summer, rain on the asphalt, the woman with the lipstick, cigarette ash and alienation, V8 coupes, tough guys, snub-nosed pistols, the ice melting in the bourbon . . . . The results are Chandleresque, sure, but you can see Banville’s sense of fun.” —The Washington Post

Why would suicide need a witness? On the east coast of Ireland. Victor Delahaye. one of the country's most prominent citizens. takes his business partner's son out sailing. But once at sea. Davy Clancy is horrified to witness Delahaye take out a gun and shoot himself dead. This strange event captures the attention of Detective Inspector Hackett and his friend Pathologist Doctor Quirke. The Delahayes and Clancys have been rivals for generations and the suicide lays bare the perplexing characters at the heart of the mystery. from Mona. Delahaye's toxic young widow. to Jonas and James. his strange. enigmatic twin sons; and Jack Clancy. his down-trodden. womanizing partner. And when a second death occurs. one even more shocking than the first. Quirke begins to realise that terrible secrets lie buried.

The material collected here is a treasure trove, a fine retrospective and a comprehensive guide to the work of Ireland’s greatest living novelist, John Banville. Selections are drawn from all of his novels, up to and including 2012’s Ancient Light; each piece standing alone, short-story-like, but also resonating with those around it and representing the novel from which it comes. There are radio plays, some published in print for the first time here. There is a judicious selection of his essays and reviews. Perhaps most beguiling of all are the pieces of memoir, the early work (including Banville’s first-ever piece of published fiction, from 1966) and the chance to see facsimiles of the handwritten first draft of the opening section of The Infinities. Possessed of a Past is an extraordinary document of the writer’s life and work across nearly fifty years of practice, simultaneously offering the perfect introduction to Banville’s sublime art and manna to devoted readers.

'Billy Gray was my best friend and I fell in love with his mother.' Alexander Cleave, an actor who thinks his best days are behind him, remembers his first unlikely affair as a teenage boy in a small town in 1950s Ireland: the illicit meetings in a rundown cottage outside town; assignations in the back of his lover's car on sunny mornings and rain-soaked afternoons. And with these early memories comes something sharper and much darker - the more recent recollection of the actor's own daughter's suicide ten years before. Ancient Light is the story of a life rendered brilliantly vivid: the obsession and selfishness of young love and the terrifying shock of grief. It is a dazzling novel, funny, utterly pleasurable and devastatingly moving in the same moment.

Quirke, the hard-drinking, insatiably curious Dublin pathologist, is back, and he's determined to find his daughter's best friend. Both an absorbing crime novel and a brilliant portrait of the difficult love between a father and daughter, this is Black at his sparkling best.

When newspaper magnate Richard Jewell is found dead at his country estate, clutching a shotgun in his lifeless hands, few see his demise as cause for sorrow. But before long Doctor Quirke and Inspector Hackett realise that, rather than the suspected suicide, 'Diamond Dick' has in fact been murdered.

From the writer of the Booker Prize-winning The Sea, a new novel, a major literary event of the Autumn

Der Multimilliardär William Big Bill Mulholland will seine Memoiren schreiben lassen, und sein Schwiegersohn John Glass übernimmt widerwillig den Auftrag. Nach der Beauftragung eines Detektivs, der kurz darauf ermordet wird, wird klar, dass jemand Geheimnisse bewahren möchte.

William Mulholland is an Irish-American electronics billionaire. An ex-CIA operative, he now heads up the Mulholland Trust, with the help of his daughter Louise. When he gets wind of a hostile biography planned for him by the investigative journalist Wilson Cleaver, he commissions his daughter's husband to pen the official line.

Time has moved on for Quirke, the world-weary pathologist first encountered in Christine Falls. It is the middle of the 1950s, that low, dishonourable decade; a woman he loved has died, a man he once admired is dying, while the daughter he for so long denied is still finding it hard to accept him as her father. When an old acquaintance approaches him about his wife's apparent suicide, Quirke recognizes trouble but, as always, trouble is something he cannot resist. 'Drug addiction, morbid sexual obsession, blackmail and murder, as well as prose as crisp as a winter's morning by the Liffey . . . Quirke is human enough to swell the hardest of hearts' GQ 'A neat whodunit plot and a delightful command of suspense' Independent on Sunday 'The death of Michael Dibdin left a huge hole in crime fiction. Black and Quirke are filling that gap with this wholly gripping account for the shady, priest-ridden and blithely corrupt society of mid-twentieth-century Dublin' Daily Mail 'A romp of a read, a compelling fix' Scotsman 'Dublin's clammy atmosphere and its oppressive social and religious mores are a convincing backdrop to a moving drama conveyed by a master writer' The Times

Quirke's pathology department, set deep beneath the city, is his own gloomy realm: always quiet, always night, and always under his control. Until late one evening after a party he stumbles across a body that should not be there and his brother-in-law falsifying the corpse's cause of death. This is the first time Quirke has encountered Christine Falls, but the investigation he decides to lead into the way she lived and died uncovers a dark secret at the heart of Dublin's high Catholic network; one with the power to shake his own family and everything he holds dear. 'A superb stylist ...His control and pacing cannot be faulted, and the final outcome is almost unbearably moving ...You're in for a treat' - Michael Dibdin, Guardian. 'Succeeds sensationally ...An absorbing plot, beguiling characters and evocative settings ...His pacing is impeccable' - Marcel Berlins, The Times. 'A gripping, beautifully crafted thriller ...A one sitting-read, an all-night enticement' - Scotsman.

This lively and engaging reference book explores the meaning and etymology of common Latin and Greek phrases in law, politics, science, technology, literature, philosophy, and the arts.

When Max Morden returns to the coastal town where he spent a holiday in his youth he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. From the Booker-shortlisted author of 'Shroud' and 'The Book of Evidence'.

John Banville, heredero confeso de la malicia de Nabokov y la prosa de Beckett, se ha convertido en una de las voces más tersas, sugerentes y originales de las letras en lengua ingles, y en uno de los artífices del renacimiento de la literatura irlandesa. Su primer libro, Long Lankin, apareció en 1970, y luego se han sucedido, entre otros, Copérnico (ganador del Premio James Tait Black en 1976), Kepler (ganador del Premio Guardian 1981), El libro de las pruebas (1991), El intocable (1999), La carta de Newton (2001), Eclipse (2002) y Mefisto (2002). Actualmente reside en Dublín, donde es editor del Irish Times.

Prague is the magic capital of Europe. Since the days of Emperor Rudolf II, "devotee of the stars and cultivator of the spagyric art", who in the late 1500s summoned alchemists and magicians from all over the world to his castle on Hradèany hill, it has been a place of mystery and intrigue. Wars, revolutions, floods, the imposition of Soviet communism, and even the depredations of the tourist boom after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 could not destroy the unique atmosphere of this beautiful, proud, and melancholy city on the Vltava. John Banville traces Prague's often tragic history and portrays the people who made it: the emperors and princes, geniuses and charlatans, heroes and scoundrels. He also paints a portrait of the Prague of today, reveling in its newfound freedoms, eager to join the European Community and at the same time suspicious of what many Praguers see as yet another totalitarian takeover. He writes of his first visit to the city, in the depths of the Cold War, and of subsequent trips there, of the people he met, the friends he made, the places he came to know.

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A collection of three captivating historical novels featuring Dr. Copernicus, Kepler, and The Newton Letter, all in one volume.

"Alexander Cleave has never been able to rid himself of the feeling that he is in 'a perpetual state of being watched' - even when alone. So he became an actor, and successfully performed his way through life until suddenly, at the peak of his career, he corpsed in the middle of the last act and staggered off stage, never to return." "Self-banished to his childhood home and cut off from his wife, Cleave begins to unravel the past and disinter his own identity. But his attempt to retire, to sift and discard the accumulated clutter of half a century of existence, is undermined by the house itself, brimming with lives, both ghostly and undeniably, robustly human. Memory constantly displaces Cleave's attention to the small, delicate details of the present. So too does his anxiety about the future, and the thought of his beloved but troubled daughter, Cass, tugging away at him like an undertow."--BOOK JACKET.

From the author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel The Sea.

Opens with a shipwreck, leaving a party of sightseers temporarily marooned on an island. The stranded castaways make their way towards the refuge of the isle's reclusive savant; but the big isolated house which is home to Professor Silas Kreutznaer and his laconic assistant, Licht, is also home to another, unnamed presence.

'This is the book John Banville was born to write' Catherine Lockerbie, Scotsman

From the internationally acclaimed author of The Book of Evidence and Ghosts comes a mesmerizing novel that is both a literary thriller and a love story as sumptuously perverse as Lolita. "A strange and dreamlike book . . . Banville has a breathtaking style."--Boston Globe. From the Trade Paperback edition.

First-time paperback of the first novel by the author of Ghosts and The Book of Evidence

A historical novel based on the life and work of Johannes Kepler, the great astronomer of the 17th-century, which was winner of "The Guardian" Fiction Prize in 1981. The author also wrote "Doctor Copernicus" which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1976 and "The Newton Letter".

Freddie Montgomery is a gentleman first and a murderer second. He committed two crimes - he stole a painting from a wealthy family friend and he killed a chambermaid who caught him in the act. Here he tells his story

The work of Nicholas Koppernigk, better known as Copernicus, shattered the medieval view of the universe and led to the formulation of the image of the solar system we know today. Here his life is powerfully evoked in a novel that offers a vivid portrait of a man of painful reticence, haunted by a malevolent brother and baffled by the conspiracies that rage around him and his ideas while he searches for the secret of life.

`Fable, intellectual thriller, Gothic extravaganza, symbolist conundrum . . . a true work of art' Sunday Independent

From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of "The Sea" is this classic novel of family, of isolation, and of a blighted Ireland in a remarkable and complex story about the end of innocence for one boy and his country.