This third of Benjamin Black’s Quirke series begins with Quirke drying out in a clinic. In the city, his daughter, Phoebe Griffin, is worried about her friend, April Latimer, a doctor and the daughter of a powerful family. No one has seen April for some time, and although she has gone away before, Phoebe thinks she would have told her.
Phoebe first goes to Dr. Oscar Latimer, April’s brother, even though she knows April is estranged from her family. Oscar doesn’t seem interested and says April probably ran off.
Phoebe is beginning to believe that April is dead. After Quirke gets out of the clinic, Phoebe turns to him. He talks to his friend Inspector Hackett, and the police eventually find a cleaned up pool of blood next to April’s bed.
The Latimers seem to be more concerned about their family reputation than they are about April and use their connections to get the investigation shut down. In the meantime, Phoebe is falling for Patrick Ojukuru, a Nigerian student in the small group of friends that included April. When Quirke tells her a Black man was seen visiting April, Phoebe denies knowing of any Black man.
Quirke is falling off the wagon with a vengeance, but he continues looking into the case.
An investigator with a drinking problem is such a cliché, but otherwise I find this series set in 1950s Dublin to be well written and interesting.
What? Me Read? 
I love his writing as John Banville but didn’t get on so well with with the only Quirke book I’ve read. This one sounds more interesting though – the one I read was all about the Catholic church abuses, which has almost become a cliché too in Irish fiction. I do feel alcoholic detectives should be banned!
That was probably the first one, about out-of-wedlock children taken from their mothers to be adopted by wealthy Americans.
I haven’t read any Benjamin Black yet, but have Christine Falls lined up for next month. I’m hoping I enjoy it as much as I have his books as John Banville.
They are different.