A bit of a disappointment . . . reminiscent of a Chandler novel the way it just unravels at the end with no real resolution, or the revelation that there's not much to resolve intellectually . . . but unlike Chandler the resolutions seem pat and unsatisfying. I'll try him again, certainly: the lead character had promise.

edit: Ahh. There a sequel! But still . . . something insufficient in the underlying plot to actually motivate the action of the story. As I say, that's sometimes the point, but here I'm not so sure we aren't just looking at a failure of inspiration or willingness to go wholeheartedly into the realm of genre fiction. ( )

Another one received from ER but started and never finished. Maybe I'll give it another shot at a later date but for now it's a library donation. And I had very high hopes for this one.

There is certainly a literary quality to Christine Falls, which shouldn’t be surprising since Benjamin Black is the pen name of John Banville (he makes that obvious). While this story mainly takes place in Dublin, the city doesn’t play much of a part, which was disappointing. I believe Tana French’s In the Woods did a better job using Ireland as a backdrop.

Black’s strengths lie with his characters. They seemed realistic, even if I was left questioning some of the motives driving them. He did an excellent job spreading the back story throughout the novel. Unfortunately, I found the back story to be more interesting than the action supposedly driving this book.

The weakness of Christine Falls, in my opinion, is the plot. I love the mystery genre, so perhaps my expectations were a bit formulaic. I saw several of the surprise twists coming a mile away, and I was confused about what the mystery actually was. As I neared the end of the book, I found myself skipping much of the literary descriptions in order to get to the plot. I found the big reveal to be anti-climatic. The discovery may have been shocking in 1950s Dublin, but it didn’t do much for me. ( )

Although the premise intrigued me, I tired of the people and their predictability. I read it all the way though, more because it was an ARC than because I enjoyed it, I'm afraid. Perhaps if the characters had been more dimensional, or the suspense tighter, or the mystery better done, I would have been able to enjoy the writing and the total experience. I was rooting for the book to work--1950s Dublin and Boston should have been great additional characters.

Sorry, I did want to like this. ( )