A new author to me. Wasn't sure what to expect but quite enjoyed the story - it didn't grip me but reasonably entertaining.

I was very disappointed in this book, there were so many spelling mistakes and letters missing from words it was almost impossible to decipher any meaning in places. This may well be due to having an early review copy but even reviewers deserve a legible copy!!!

It is also very difficult to find a good point to put the book down as it is just one long chapter with no obvious break points. Sadly I gave up after 10%

Even the Dead is another great addition to the Quirke series and is an intensely atmospheric look at a city, and a country, still very much under the thumb of the Catholic Church of its day. 1950s Dublin, at least as Benjamin Black portrays it, is a city whose most powerful figure is the Archbishop, a man everyone else with any pretense of power strives to keep happy. The church controls more than the souls of Dublin’s people, it controls everything about their daily lives. And the man calling the shots for the church shows them little mercy. A lot of dirty money is being made by a lot of dirty people.

Quirke is a fascinating character and a great lead protagonist and it is always enjoyable to be in his company

I apologise for the fact that I didn't give you a review of this book: it was a particularly difficult time for me and I'll confess that I forgot all about it. Thank you for the opportunity though.

Even the dead by Benjamin Black.
Two victims - one dead, one missing. Even the Dead is a visceral, gritty and cinematic thriller from Benjamin Black Every web has a spider sitting at the centre of it. Pathologist Quirke is back working in the city morgue, watching over Dublin's dead. When a body is found in a burnt-out car, Quirke is called in to verify the apparent suicide of an up-and-coming civil servant. But Quirke can't shake a suspicion of foul play. The only witness has vanished, every trace of her wiped away. Piecing together her disappearance, Quirke finds himself drawn into the shadowy world of Dublin's elite - secret societies and high church politics, corrupt politicians and men with money to lose. When the trail eventually leads to Quirke's own family, the past and present collide. But crimes of the past are supposed to stay hidden, and Quirke has shaken the web. Now he must wait to see what comes running out. '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 'Quirke is an endearing hero and the Dublin of the 1950s - wet, cold, foggy, sinister - is evoked with harsh realism and nostalgia' The Times 'A requiem for a cursed city, its inhabitants' inner lives doomed to remain as locked away, unhappy and unknowable as whatever lies buried' Metro
Fantastic read with brilliant characters. I really enjoyed this book. Didn't want it to end. 5*. Netgalley and penguin books UK.

I have to say that I found this book very very slow and really not particularly interesting. The cover implies that it is going to be good mystery, however the reality is that it is not.
As usual with my experience of Irish authors, there is an obsession with both politics and religion and quite frankly I am not interested in reading about the.
Shame because I know Dublin and was interested to read a book about it, but the rest of the slow moving story let it down for me.