Moonlighting in murder.

Irish author John Banville may very well deserve a break. His work has twice been short-listed for the Booker Prize (his 2005 novel The Sea took top honors), he is a long time contributor to The New York Review of Books, and formerly edited the literary section of The Irish Times. He's earned the respect of literary critics and his work seems bound for the Everyman's Library or Penguin Modern Classics treatment and literary survey courses.

But Banville is taking a different tack, perhaps a little surprising for an author so estabilished in literary circles. The Silver Swan marks Banville's second foray into mystery/suspense/noir fiction, under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. His first novel, Christine Falls, introduced Quirke, a pathologist obscurely laboring (and drinking) away in post-war Dublin. In that novel, Quirke stumbled into a mystery when a particular young woman turned up on his autopsy table, and he reluctantly pursued the cause of her death to the very core of his own haunted story. That novel was marked by Banville's masterful depiction of a brooding Dublin, matched by the delicate shifting family relationships. I actually wound up buying my own copy of Christine Falls, probably the highest recommendation my cheapsake self could give to a book.

The Silver Swan picks up a few years after the events of Christine Falls. Quirke is on the wagon, and he's making an effort to mend his relationship with his newly acknowledged daughter, Phoebe. He wants nothing more to do with detective work. But another young woman, this time an apparent suicide, piques his interest--especially after her grieving husband requests that Quirke forego the autopsy. He discovers that Deirde Hunt died by another's hand, but this time, Quirke isn't sure he wants to see justice done--something tells him Deirdre would rest better as a suicide. But when one of Deirdre's secrets, a con man who's beginning to dabble in more serious crimes. He's also pursuing Phoebe, leaving Quirke with no choice but to follow the clues of Deirdre's death to the answer.

Or rather, I should say, until Banville reveals the answer. Quirke isn't a typical private eye who follows the clues. Rather, most of the story is told in alternating perspectives, with the mystery unfolding alongside Quirke's deepening involvement. As such, traditional P.I. fans might not find Quirke to their liking. But Banville captures the noirish, suspenseful feel of the 1950s, so much so that I was partly expecting Lauren Bacall to sidle into some of the scenes. I did think a fault was the stereotyping of some characters. And I'm bothered by the terrible victimization of women both in Christine Falls and Silver Swan. Perhaps Banville is being true to the period, but in both books, women (albeit well developed as characters) are treated appallingly by the men in their lives. It bears watching if Banville does more with his women in future books.

It's sometimes tough to pigeonhole particular books, and Banville proves that it's getting harder to classify authors. But maybe we just need to get over putting books (and authors) into tidy catagories. Banville mixes the best of literary description and atmosphere with the mystery plotting to create a memorable character.