The set-up is like a vintage Agatha Christie. Set in December 1957, a Detective Inspector is sent from Dublin to investigate the murder of a priest in a large country house. It is peopled by stock Christie characters - which Banville points out several times - it contains some arch references to Murder On the Orient Express and so on. Banville “subverts” the genre with some explicit sex scenes, but otherwise it pretty much plods through a Country House Mystery plot. It’s all terribly knowing and postmodern, but for me it did not make a good read and became pretty irritating. Even the intimate characterisation and evocative scene-setting which I have found so involving in books like Ancient Light aren’t really there; just little sparks every so often.
The plot and motivation are very well-worn, with pointers toward priestly malfeasance very early on. I think that by now we know that priests and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Ireland last century did some dreadful things which were covered up; as a core plot it really needs more than Banville gives it here to be other than a rehash of what we’ve read many times by now.
The book does have its moments; a scene between the Inspector and the Archbishop is very well done, for example, but even the structure is very clumsy in places, with an out-of-place monologue from a different point of view toward the end and an unconvincing epilogue.
Snow isn’t terrible by any means, but it was a bit of a slog and didn’t do much for me. I suspect that I may have reached the end of the road with John Banville; I haven’t genuinely enjoyed a book of his for some time and I can’t really recommend this one.
(My thanks to Faber & Faber for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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