Book Review: The Lemur

Reviewed By: Lynn Harnett

The Lemur     Amazon US TPB Amazon UK HC Amazon Canada TPB
Benjamin Black
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Thriller
Picador, June 2008

Originally serialized in The New York Times Magazine, this novella doesn’t meet the standards of Black’s Quirke novels. Irish journalist John Glass has given up reporting on foreign wars and accepted a commission from his wealthy and powerful American father-in-law, “Big Bill,” to write the old man’s biography.

His reduced role in the world – complacent, unfaithful husband of a rich wife, occupying a glassed-in office in the old man’s Manhattan skyscraper – doesn’t square with his war-correspondent persona. There may be such people, but Black never convinces and the story – a dark secret in the past and a murder in the present – is Chandleresque but ordinary.

Black (pseudonym of award-winning novelist John Banville) is a fine writer, but readers interested in his noir books should turn to his 1950s Dublin pathologist Quirke series, beginning with “Christine Falls.”

Lynn Harnett

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Lynn Harnett

Please Note: Books reviewed are usually provided by the publisher, author, or an agent. Reviewers usually get to keep the book.