Black, Benjamin: The Silver Swan

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The Silver Swan begins two years after the events of Christine Falls, the first novel in Benjamin Black's series featuring Dublin pathologist Garret Quirke. This time out Quirke becomes involved in the case of an apparent death by drowning when an old school acquaintance--the husband of the dead woman, Deirdre Hunt--asks him not to perform a postmortem. It's an odd request, and Quirke is a curious man, though much less eager to become embroiled in controversy than he was two years earlier. Against his better judgment he begins sniffing around, though his investigation, if it can be called that, is desultory. He asks a few questions. He worries and thinks. In the end he doesn't really solve anything: it's an odd sort of mystery. The story is told from multiple points of view--Quirke's, his daughter's, the dead woman's, her lover's. It is through these other perspectives rather than from any of Quirke's digging that the reader discovers what actually happened to Deirdre Hunt.

I enjoyed The Silver Swan, but as I said, it's not your average mystery and won't appeal to all tastes. It's less about plot than it is about Quirke's character and his relationships, mostly troubled, and the dismal milieu in which he serves out his life. It's very nicely written. I would love to see it translated to the small screen as one of the series in PBS's stable of Mystery! mysteries.

What I don't get about this book, though, is why Quirke should be so thrown by Deirdre's death, which you would think would be par for the course for a man in his profession. Nor do I understand why he elected not to share his suspicions with the police. So I suppose I'm struggling with the foundation on which the story is built, while having enjoyed the story itself.