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The Silver Swan: A Novel
 

The Silver Swan: A Novel

by John Banville



The inimitable Quirke returns in another spellbinding crime novel, in which a young woman’s dubious suicide sets off a new string of hazards and deceptions




Two years have passed since the events of the bestselling Christine Falls, and much has changed for Quirke, the irascible, formerly hard-drinking Dublin pathologist. His beloved Sarah is dead, his... (read more)

Top tags: 1950s,  2008,  crime fiction,  ireland,  murder (all tags)

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Amazon Reviews (5)
 

Most Helpful Reviews

Liked It

quinnsmom
  • Rated 4 stars

“Back again to Dublin and to Quirke, the pathologist featured in Black's Christine Falls. The events of Silver Swan take place some two years after Christine Falls, and there are a lot of changes in Quirke's life and those of the other continuing supporting characters as well. Like Christine Falls, The Silver Swan remains a dark and broody type of novel, so if you're looking for warm fuzzies and a lilting tone, forget it. It's just not in Quirke's nature, and after the events that transpired...”

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Didn’t Like It

jentaw
  • Rated 2 stars

“I enjoyed this book, but its two major flaws were that it doesn't set itself in time (unlike the first in the series, Christine Falls) and that it becomes all too much about the perils and costs and ignominies of sex. The sense of compulsion and even obsession is fine, but I thought it went into overkill. Clearly this is meant to evoke the costs of repression in that time period, but it instead seems like ugly voyeurism.”

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Community:
  • Rated 3.384615 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 0 stars
  

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