Did you get a chance to pick up Dosed to Death for $0.99 this weekend? You may be able to still catch it at the lower price today, but it is going back up! And check out some of the other free and $0.99 books included in my sale blog to see if there is anything else that interests you!
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules and more teasers at The Purple Booker. Anyone can play along.
I don’t think that I have read anything by Benjamin Black before. Today I started on Holy Orders, book 6 in the Quirke series. A quirky (if I may say so) pathologist taking on the role of detective to find the culprit who murdered a friend of his daughter. The Quirke series has apparently been adapted for television, though I have never seen any of the episodes.
Good action and description so far. I am curious about the main characters and their back stories, which I will hopefully learn a little more about as I read on. Black weaves enough description into the book that you know what is going on, even though it is later in the series.
“There’s a new one in,” he said. “Fished out of the canal in the small hours. Young fellow.”
Benjamin Black, Holy Orders
When the body of his daughter’s friend is brought to his autopsy table, Quirke is plunged into a world of corruption that takes him to the darkest corners of the Irish Church and State.
“At first they thought it was the body of a child. Later, when they got it out of the water and saw the pubic hair and the nicotine stains on the fingers, they realized their mistake.”
So begins Holy Orders, the latest Quirke case set in Dublin at a moment when newspapers are censored, social conventions are strictly defined, and appalling crimes are hushed up. Why? Because in 1950s Ireland the Catholic Church controls the lives of nearly everyone. But when Quirke’s daughter Phoebe loses her close friend Jimmy Minor to murder, Quirke can no longer play by the Church’s rules. Along with Inspector Hackett, his sometime partner, Quirke investigates Jimmy’s death and learns just how far the Church and its supporters will go to protect their own interests.
Haunting, fierce, and brilliantly plotted, this is Benjamin Black writing at the top of his form. His inimitable creation, the endlessly curious Quirke, brings a pathologist’s unique understanding of death to unlock the most dangerous of secrets.
