Black’s third mystery featuring the pathologist Garret Quirke – working in 1950s Dublin –begins with the antihero working his way through rehab, following a six-month blackout-worthy binge. He emerges from St. John’s intent on buying a fancy new car – despite not being able to drive – and reconnecting with his semi-estranged daughter Phoebe. Phoebe, it turns out, is in need of her father’s help: her friend April Latimer, a young doctor at Quirke’s hospital, has gone missing, and Phoebe is the only one who seems to notice. While Quirke works over the powerful Latimer family, Phoebe turns to her group of friends, and it’s clear that only father and daughter are being honest about what they know.

John Banville isn’t fooling anyone. That’s him behind the veil of Benjamin Black, the pen name he adopted to write a series of mystery novels starring Quirke. But put aside the genre trimmings, and it’s Banville through and through. While the reader is cautiously ushered through another slow-burning tale of mystery, it’s obvious the story is just a vessel to explore the issues Banville has always been interested in: the testing of family strained by a common pain and the enduring pressure of societal hang-ups (in this one, it’s the religious hangover of midcentury Ireland).

Black has found firmer footing with each novel, beginning with the at-times languorous Christine Falls, to 2008’s The Silver Swan. In Elegy for April, he’s nailed down the recipe, the style and pace that allows him to craft a story of suspense while filling it with sharp-eyed, bigger picture observations.

Jonathan Messinger