The Lemur

Booker Prize–winning author John Banville dons his Benjamin Black guise when he wants to distinguish between his mystery and “literary” sides. Though, because Banville writes in the same pensive mode under both names, it’s really just a matter of signalling what type of story readers can expect.

The Lemur stands as his third incursion into suspense writing, and the first as a stand-alone book (the other two feature his hero, Irish pathologist Garret Quirke). Formerly famous journalist John Glass, who made his name reporting on violence in Ireland, has settled into a muted married existence. His wife, Louise, is the daughter of former CIA hotshot and media magnate Big Bill Mulholland, who offers his son-in-law $1 million to write his autobiography. Glass shamefacedly takes the money, convinced he’s selling out, and hires a young researcher to dig into his father-in-law’s life. When the researcher—whom Glass calls the Lemur because of his physical shortcomings—turns up murdered, Glass can’t help but wonder what he discovered about Mulholland.

A dense, brief, character-driven thriller, The Lemur features Banville’s trademark dark humor and interest in Old World social mores. When the Lemur first contacts Glass to tell him he’s uncovered a dark secret—just before he’s shot in the eye—Glass immediately runs through the list of improprieties and infidelities he and his wife have perpetrated over the years, secrets the prudish paterfamilias would never tolerate.

The murder forces Glass to engage in a long bout of self-examination, which doesn’t turn up much more than a deep self-loathing. As the mystery eventually unfolds, nearly all parties become implicated in a tight and complex network of lies, damaged pride and hyperextended longing. Banville may want to keep his mysteries separated from the rest of his oeuvre, but all of that sounds an awful lot like his more “literary” work, too.