Snow is a coming out party for the author, John Banville, who has been writing similar police procedurals under the name Benjamin Black. Also for the detective, John Stafford, er Strafford, a repeated mispronunciation that has no charm to lose, even the first time. John-Boy is thrust into a county house murder, Agatha Christie-like. Of mild interest is the victim, a priest. But .... obviousness alert -- why do priests get murdered? Snow is a little flakey but not enough so, and Strafford lacks the quirks that make Quirke such a great character. By all means, Mr. Banville, use your own name, but please write like that other fellow, Mr. Black.

Atmospheric and haunting, this is a traditional manor house mystery with a decidedly non-traditional ending. Reminiscent of Dame Agatha herself, Banville is a master at creating flawed and fascinating characters. Snow is aptly titled, the mood of the bleak Irish winter so immersive I forgot where I was as I was reading.

Snow: cold, soft, brilliantly blinding. It muffles sound and casts a thick shroud over whatever lies beneath. The symbolism is apropos in Banville’s newest crime novel, the first to be written under his own name rather than the pseudonym (Benjamin Black) he’d established for genre-fiction purposes.

Snow takes place in County Wexford, Ireland, a time when the Catholic Church reigned supreme and buried its adversaries. One frigid day in 1957, Detective Inspector St. John (pronounced “Sinjun”) Strafford arrives at Ballyglass House to investigate a murder. The body of Father Tom Lawless, longtime friend of the Osborne family, lies on the floor of the ornate library, throat cut and private parts removed. A parish priest’s killing is bizarre enough on its own, and almost no one seems upset about it. Strafford shares the privileged Protestant background of the Osbornes but finds, to his annoyance, that this doesn’t gain him any ground in his sleuthing.

The story appears to follow a standard country-house mystery plot, with a closed-in setting and characters fitting familiar types: a refined patriarch, his attractive younger wife, their rebellious adult children. Banville peels away at these tropes as the personalities behind the theatrical parts make themselves known. Strafford is himself an intriguing figure, both in his career – most policemen in the Garda are Catholic – and in his reactions to the women he meets.

That said, he’s surprisingly slow on the uptake in pinpointing motive. An interlude late in the story, seen from Father Tom’s viewpoint, makes things clear for anyone who hasn’t yet figured it out. Banville has a consummate hand with establishing atmosphere, though, in sentences of chillingly ethereal beauty: “Surely such a violent act should leave something behind, a trace, a tremor in the air, like the hum that lingers when a bell stops tolling?”

(from the Historical Novels Review, November 2020)

John Banville, called “the Irish Master” by The New Yorker, has apparently written over a dozen novels, none of which I had read (or could remember reading), so when Hanover Square/Harlequin and NetGalley provided a copy of Snow (in exchange for my honest review), I confess it sat in my TBR pile for awhile. With the pandemic and the world falling apart, I haven’t been in the mood for “literary fiction” -- no, I’ve been reading mostly escapist fiction. I figured my brain would reject anything that made me think too much…

Reminiscent of an Agatha Christie-type mystery and set in 1957, the story features Detective Inspector St. John Strafford (“Sinjun” and “with an R”) as an Irish Detective Inspector who is sent off to investigate the murder of a Catholic priest at the ancestral home of the aristocratic, somewhat reclusive Osborne family. Strafford understands the Osbornes, as he was himself raised on an estate reminiscent of the Osbornes’ Ballyglass House. A crystal clear picture of the house where the murder occurred and its parallels to both the Strafford and the Osborne families is presented as the Detective first looks around the scene: “Only someone who had been born and brought up in a place like this, as he had, could know the particular, piercing fondness he felt before the sad spectacle of so much decay and decrepitude. Helpless nostalgia was the curse of his steadily dwindling caste.”

Both these families are Protestant, but the Catholic Church rules Ireland with an iron fist. Strafford wants to find the murderer, but faces obstruction from the Church, the silence of the close-knit community, and the weather, with the snow adding to the darkness and oppressive feeling that grows as the mystery unfolds.

Strafford is an interesting and somewhat quirky figure: “he didn’t really know himself and didn’t care to.” Although he’s apparently a good detective, he “...wasn’t good at solving puzzles...always the danger, in his job, of seeing things that weren’t there, of making a pattern where there wasn’t one.” As his investigation continues, and his partner mysteriously vanishes, Strafford is challenged to understand the community’s secrets, the quirky Osbornes, and his own situation.

It made me think, but not about the pandemic or the election. I was transported to the Irish countryside, and I loved it. Yes, it was somewhat predictable, but still entertaining. I need to read more John Banville books!! Four stars.

Who could ask for more than a body in the library? This is an atmospheric mystery set in Ireland on a somewhat isolated estate. The sleuth is quirky and very determined. Immensely satisfying with a small surprise.

"Snow" by John Banville, Hanover Square Press, 304 pages, Oct. 13, 2020.

Detective Inspector St. John Strafford has been summoned to County Wexford to investigate a murder.

The Rev. Tom Lawless, a parish priest, has been found dead and mutilated in Ballyglass House, the family seat of the Osborne family. It has snowed continuously for two days.

Colonel Geoffrey Osborne has two adult children from his first marriage, Dominic, a medical student, and Letty, who has been expelled from school. Millicent, his first wife, died in a fall. He is now married to Sylvia, who has a mental illness.

The year is 1957 and the Catholic Church rules Ireland. Strafford is Protestant. He had never heard of the murder of a priest before. The body was obviously moved and cleaned up before Stratford arrived. Detective Sergeant Ambrose Jacobs is his second in command.

On the second day of the investigation, Strafford goes to speak to Father Tom's sister, Rosemary, and Jacobs returns to the house. The Lawless' father was a notorious figure in the Irish Civil War. When Strafford returns to Ballyglass House, Jacobs is missing.

While it is not a mystery why the priest was killed, the issue is who killed him and why did this person go after Jacobs? The family is strange. The book's tone is dark. The character development is good, but the resolution of the crime is underwhelming. This isn't John Banville's best novel.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

Delighted to include John Banville's latest novel in the monthly hotlist October roundup for Zoomer magazine's Club Zeb book club, online at this link

Published by Hanover Square Press on October 6, 2020

Most of Snow takes place in 1957, although an epilog recounts a meeting between two characters ten years later. Snow is the first of a two-book deal featuring St. John Strafford, a Protestant detective in Catholic Ireland. The same character appeared in The Secret Guests, a novel set during World War II that John Banville published under his penname Benjamin Black. Apparently, Banville has decided that he no longer needs to publish crime novels under a penname, or perhaps his publisher told him that his books will sell better if he publishes them under his real name.

Strafford is assigned to investigate the death of a priest named Father Tom in a prosperous Protestant home where Father Tom was a frequent guest. The killer cut off Father Tom’s junk, perhaps making the motive for the crime obvious, priests being notorious for misusing their junk.

Since the house was locked on the night of the priest’s death, suspects are limited to family members and the stable boy. The semi-doddering patriarch has a new wife, the first one having died in a fall on the same staircase where Father Tom was murdered. Most of the story’s modest intrigue comes from the interaction of the family members. Banville also tries to generate interest with the church’s desire to avoid publicizing the circumstances of the priest’s death and the discomfort that Strafford is made to feel as a member of a religious minority in Ireland.

Banville gained fame as a prose stylist. Reading the well-crafted language of a Banville novel is always pleasant, but he clearly doesn’t make the same effort in genre novels that he once devoted to literary fiction. His genre prose isn’t as dense or as lyrical as his literary prose. Nor does Banville’s genre work have the depth of his earlier books. While crime is a theme in some of Banville’s literary novels, including his most celebrated work, The Book of Evidence, his genre crime novels lack the heft of his best work.

The difference is evident in Snow. The novel follows the formula of a mystery novel by asking the reader to decide which of several suspects might be the murderer. While the clues seem to point in the direction of one or two characters, Banville employs the misdirection that characterizes the genre, only revealing the full truth of the crime in the epilog. The revelation doesn’t come as much of a surprise, giving the sense that Banville just isn’t trying very hard. The plot is certainly no better than average for a genre crime novel.

A writer can’t be faulted for writing books that sell, and crime fiction typically outsells literary fiction, but the best writers in the crime genre fuse the strongest qualities of literary fiction and genre fiction. Banville hasn’t done that.

I’m giving Snow a cautious recommendation because Banville holds the reader’s interest with a mildly entertaining if undemanding story. Readers who are looking for something more from a writer who was once regarded as a rising literary giant will likely be disappointed.

RECOMMENDED

The murder of a Catholic priest in 1950s Ireland, terrible snowy weather limiting the suspects and hiding potential evidence, and heavy atmosphere all make up the basis for John Banville's "Snow". It's a gruesome murder in a small village but no one seems too interested in the case, or too sorry about the priest, or too interested in telling the detective what they know. The characters were all- as the main character himself noticed,-mostly stock figures you'd find in any English or Irish fiction. Flat and unknowable, they and the plot plod along in circles as much as the detective himself does. The solution doesn't come as a surprise, even the attempted twist at the end isn't surprising, and I thought the slightly random chapter from Father Tom's point of view wasn't much of an addition to the story even though it gives the background explanation the reader has pretty much figured out for themselves already. Overall I found the writing style and the story as heavy and colorless as the snow Banville kept describing, and this was a plodder I was glad to finish.

It’s Christmas time, 1957, in the south-east of Ireland. The mutilated body of Father Tom Lawless is found in the library of Ballyglass House, the country home of the aristocratic Osborne family. Detective Inspector St. John (Sinjun) Strafford is in charge of the investigation. The Osbornes are not particularly forthcoming, and Strafford, a Protestant, also faces obstruction from the Catholic Church which publicizes the death as an accident.

The mystery is easily solvable. The mutilation of the body makes the motive abundantly clear. There is some question as to the identity of the murderer, but that too soon becomes obvious. What is frustrating is that Strafford seems to ignore obvious clues and doesn’t ask why the murderer would behave in a certain way. Perhaps the explanation is that Strafford is living in a time when crime scene profiling had not yet been developed and is living in a place where certain subjects were not discussed, whereas the modern reader has knowledge of Ireland’s social and religious history.

Because the plot is so predictable, the impression is that the mystery is really a stimulus to address a larger social issue, particularly the power and influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland and its history of covering up abuse by priests. The author makes clear that he feels the church has much to answer for. Strafford is told that he must be careful: “’There’s only one Archbishop – only one that counts, at any rate. Dirty your bib and he’ll be down on you like a ton of bricks, whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Gentile or Jew. Runs a tight outfit, does His Grace, without regard for creed, race or colour – no matter who you are, you’re still liable to get it in the neck. . . . the reverend Doctor only has to lift his little finger and your career goes up in smoke – or into the flames of hellfire, and then up in smoke. And it doesn’t just apply to priests. Anyone who gets a belt of the crozier is done for.’” A young woman tells Strafford much the same: “’A girl has to keep tabs on the likes of His Holiness John Charles, that’s for sure. I don’t want to end up a slave in a laundry somewhere, working my hands to the bone and the nuns shouting at me.’”

The opening sentence of the book suggests the power priests had; Father Tom, as he is attacked, thinks, “I’m a priest, for Christ’s sake – how can this be happening to me?” Later when Strafford asks about why priests are not reported for abuse, he is told: “’Report him to who? Maybe you haven’t heard – you don’t ‘report’ a priest. The clergy are untouchable. . . . The most that could have been done . . . would have been to get him transferred. That’s all the Church ever does, when one of theirs lands in trouble. Then he’d just get up to his old tricks somewhere else.’”

Snow becomes another obstacle Strafford has to overcome. The oppressiveness of the snow serves as a metaphor for the Catholic Church’s oppressive hold on Ireland. Travel becomes difficult in the countryside because of snowfall, just as the murder investigation is complicated by the archbishop’s interference. The snow blankets the country just as the church tries to cover up the circumstances of a priest’s death. At one point, the snow falls “in big flabby flakes the size of Communion wafers.” When Strafford quotes the last paragraph of James Joyce’s “The Dead” (“’Snow is general all over Ireland’”), he can be commenting on the church’s strong grip over the entire country.

Later in the novel there’s an Interlude written from the point of view of a sexual abuser. Reading this section is very disturbing. The man justifies his actions with comments like “[The boy] needed to be loved, whether he knew it or not” and “must have had some sense of pride at having been picked out and made my special one. That must have been a source of pleasure for him.” He addresses those who might accuse him: “Don’t tell me you know about a thing until you’ve done it. And don’t tell me that, having done it, you won’t want to do it again. Don’t point your finger at me and call me names and say that God will punish me. So few of us know what it’s like – more than you’d think, but few, all the same – we who live in the secret, enchanted world.”

It is known that people who were sexually abused in childhood often become abusive themselves. This is the pattern suggested in the novel. This fact means that the reader may feel some sympathy for a person. Since the church did nothing to help abusing priests, the cycle continued. Of course the cyclical nature of abuse also means that the information given about a victim at the end is downright chilling.

Banville’s writing impresses. Much of the language is lyrical. The description of the archbishop is perfect: there is repeated reference to his little dark eyes and his sharp, cold little smile. Telling details suggest his personality: “the tips of his [red velvet] slippers . . . appeared alternately, like crimson tongue-tips, from under the hem of his cassock. He stopped before the fire and held out his hands, which were as pale as cuttlefish bones. . . . flames gave a lurid tinge to his thin, pallid face.” Some of the diction like etiolated and brumous and boreen may have readers consulting a dictionary.

It could be argued that Banville doesn’t reveal anything that most readers don’t already know. What is unique is his using a police procedural as social commentary. The language makes the book a joy to read but the content will discomfit.

Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hanover Square Press for the eARC of this entertaining mystery.

A Catholic priest has been murdered in the shabby house owned by a Protestant family in County Wexford, Ireland. In steps Detective Inspector St. John Strafford, of the Dublin force. Initially, he is worried but not surprised that everyone in the Osborne family (all present in the house at the time of the murder), as well as the locals, and the Catholic Church hierarchy, all expect the story of an accidental death to win out.

Perhaps the only surprising thing about this story is the Interlude placed more than 3/4 into the book that confirms many suspicions about the deceased, and shines a light on the institutional abuse problems that Ireland, and the Church had not begun to face up to in the 1950s of this novel.

As I said, very little about this story is surprising, including the whodunnit aspect, but this was an engrossing, atmospheric book all the same.

1957 Irish mystery with a twist!

A Catholic Priest has been rather viciously killed. Detective Inspector (St. John pronounced Sinjun) Strafford has been sent to investigate. And that's an interesting aspect of the story as well.
The snow and cold frame the story's heaviness to a nicety.
The accompanying notes to the Father's death don't leave much room for us not to make the leap as to why he might've been killed but, the melding of Strafford's voice counterpointed by that of the dead man threw me. I wasn't really up for the very matter of fact explanations for abuse dropping from the perpetrator's lips. So reasonable, with such convinced righteousness. Very confronting and shocking! Father Tom had totally convinced himself that it was his victims' fault. Banville's writing is so very disarming, and it's this tension that for me carries the drama. As do the cast of characters who inhabit the small village of Ballyclass. A place Strafford, having grown up in one somewhat similar, fits right into. In fact the story is littered with idiosyncratic characters.
Indeed Strafford is rather an unusual person and as we are carried along by his reflections, I found myself standing outside of him and alongside him. I was occasionally well and truly puzzled by his thoughts and his responses especially with women.
As I've said, Banville's writing is alarmingly deceptive, hiding rotten truths and hosting quite an array of very individual characters with numerous references to many parts of Irish social, political and religious happenings, from the Troubles, to religious conflicts and religious scandals, hints of the Magdalene laundries and more. As Strafford works his way through the story behind Father Tom's death, it's perhaps the last chapter, set years later that confirms what we already suspect. (Miss Marple always says that the world can be found in a village.)
Not a story for everyone, with triggers centered around abuse and victims of abuse.
However I must say I was fixated by Banville's writing style. It's that that elevates this novel from a four star to a five star read, difficult though that read is.

A Harlequin Trade ARC via NetGalley
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

A bit too grim and gritty for my taste. That plus a lack of characters to really hold onto made this one I don’t regret having read, but won’t make any personal recommendations for.

I do have to say this book was well-written. The author did a great job of drawing the reader into the environment of the book. Languid, fat snowflakes drifting through the grey leaden sky characterized the whole book. No one seemed in a hurry. There was no sense of urgency to solve the crime or find those responsible for the gruesome murder of a Catholic priest. At one point Strafford remarks upon how the snow seems to have distorted time. I felt the same way, reading the book. It felt VERY slow. Strafford also remarks, more than once, about how everyone he encounters gives him the sense of actors in a play, portraying their assigned roles. I agreed with him, there, as well. Everyone felt intentionally stereotypical--they knew how they were expected to act. The problem with that was that I, as the reader, really felt like there was much more going on under the surface which was never addressed. Who were these people, and who were these people really supposed to be? Despite all this, I really didn't have a huge issue with the book until the flashback "Interlude," told from the Catholic priest's point of view. It was completely unnecessary. This may be a bit of a spoiler, but I knew exactly what had happened to the priest and why it happened way before I got to this part in the book. "Hearing" the priest's actions in his own words didn't serve any purpose other than to horribly graphically describe things that the reader already surmised had been going on. From this point on, for me, everyone in the book just seemed depressed, sad, and hopeless. The flash-forward ending didn't help matters. I was left confused. Was this a mystery, a commentary on the abuses of the Catholic Church, a tale of people who let other's expectations and the fickleness of fate dictate their lives? While the author did a very good job of transporting the reader to 1950s Ireland in the dead of a snowy winter, I would not recommend this book at all.

3.5 stars The desolate and stark white area with a dilapidated manor house are the setting for this murder/mystery. The body, of course, is in the library. The lead detective, who is protestant in a very catholic area, has to bear with the Archbishop. Since it was a priest who is murdered, the church wants to cover things up. The reason is no surprise, for the murder and the cover-up, so Mr. Banville spends some time showing us the injustice of Ireland in the 1950's. A solid read overall. For me, the ending left me somewhat dissatisfied.
**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review.**

3.5 stars

Banville’s prose is absolutely exquisite. He can evoke an emotion from a description in a way that I’ve seen few writers accomplish. This skill is especially impactful with a crime/mystery novel of a sensitive nature, such as we find in Snow. The pacing and character development are also masterful. As far as the mystery aspect, it is difficult to say anything that will not taint a reader’s experience. I will leave it at the fact that I had figured out the whodunnit and the motive very early, hoping I was wrong and would be surprised by something along the way. The fact that no surprise occurred forces me to lower my rating significantly.

Thank you to Hanover Square Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A slow-burning murder mystery in which you can feel the cold truth seeping through in an unsettling way.

Snow introduces us to Irish Detective Inspector St. John Strafford as he investigates the murder of a Catholic priest in a wealthy Protestant home in the late 1950's. The book begins with almost a witty banter comparing the likelihood of a body found in the library to a reminders of Christie and Holmes. We're introduced to an array of complicated and unlikable characters such as the family that lives in the home, the barkeep, his wife and waitress down the road and Strafford's partner, Jenkins. What ensues is a slow-burning murder mystery that takes place over a couple of days, right at Christmas, but almost seems to be weeks of investigation.

I found the majority of this book to be pretty slow-going. I couldn't connect with or truly like any of the characters, and I felt that Strafford was a bit surface-level. His side-attractions to some of the women in the book were also seemingly odd and distracting. While I was intrigued with the idea of this heavy and silent snow that was brought up many times throughout the book, I felt like more could have been done there - at least since it was given the title. It certainly provided a metaphor to the truth of dark secrets and "covering up" what awfulness lies below. Overall, an interesting, though dark and sad mystery.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A priest is murdered in a country estate. The truth behind his death and the muddled lives of the town people are brought to light.

As always, Banville writes an enjoyable mystery. Set in 1950’s Ireland, Detective Inspector Strafford is sent to Ballyglass House to investigate the grisly murder of a Catholic priest. There’s a lot at play here. There is always the tension of Catholics and Protestants. There’s the small town of Ballyglass where everyone want to know what is going on and there seems the be the ever-present aspect of Catholic priests abusing young boys. When the murder is solved, the reader won’t be surprised. The strength of the mystery lies in the characters.

"Snow" is the kind of novel that I love in my mysteries and my historical fiction. It brings out some of the most astonishing prose. I reread some of the paragraphs a few times to truly savor and appreciate the language. It is an evocative atmosphere and a page-turning thriller, and yet as it slowly unravels, the reader is both delighted and white-knuckled. What a devilishly good read.
I highly recommend anybody that appreciates a slow-burning, blood-chilling mystery novel pick this one up. It is not to be missed.