Wonderful

A pretty much perfect novel. Beautifully written with not a word out of place, incredibly vivid characterisation and enough of a plot to race along with. The reader's voice is dreamy and I wanted it to go on forever. Gorgeous, grim, terrifying and sad. Loved this.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Great to listen to

standard whodunnit but with lots of twists and turns. Interesting characters highlighted by excellent narration. What a great voice!

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Lovely richly descriptive story

Beautifully crafted story which has been brought to life perfectly by the narrator. Thoroughly recommend this book and Audiobook.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Brilliant performance and bags of atmosphere.

Atmospheric, intriguing, wonderful performance by Stanley Townsend. Beautifully written like all John Banville's work. Very dark themes and one particularly disturbing chapter. Not a typical thriller and all the better for it.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

a quick read

moderately interesting, may well look for more in this series but not at the top of my go-to listing

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

great story and narration

I enjoyed this story a lot. Very engaging content. the narrator did an excellent job.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Snowball shurely??

I would expect a book by John Banville to be well-written, which this is but he’s no Agatha Christie. There is a plot twist at the end, but much of it is predictable and the characters verge on charicatures of rural Ireland, Garda stock-types (drunken sergeant, lippy basic rank) and the Anglo-Irish family, from retired officer father down are straight out of central casting. It is read in a way that exaggerates the accents in a slightly distracting fashion.
However, I did enjoy it and finished it, which I can’t say of all fiction I consume these days.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Storytelling at its best

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. A rich narrative with well developed characters who each came to life through excellent writing and narration. Some gruesome happenings but somehow it was a comforting read thanks to the Irish magic. I wanted a little more help to grasp the fine details of whodunnit but maybe it was intentional to leave it unsaid.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

A gripping tale well-told

Perhaps typically of Banville this is almost two books in one. A country house who-dunnit is streaked through with a visceral examination of paedophilia and the Catholic Church; delivered with 5-star narration.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

A treat for Benjamin Black fans..

John Banville has written detective stories for many years using the nom de plume Benjamin Black, but has come out of the shadows with Snow. It’s great to be reunited with Inspector Strafford, a terrific character, from BB’s previous country house mystery, The Secret Guests. We are also given tantalising glimpses of Chief Superintendent Hackett, with whom readers of Quirke will be familiar, and Quirke himself, although he remains, infuriatingly, off-stage.

John Banville has great fun playing with the country house genre “.. ‘It’s a library. It’s an actual fucking library, and there’s a body in it... ‘“ and drops some sly references to other Irish greats of the past. There’s a host of beautifully-observed characters and much dry humour, which is brought out brilliantly by Stanley Townsend. He’s a superb narrator, with impeccable timing and a wonderful range of accents. I could listen to him reading the telephone directory..

It’s all thoroughly enjoyable and atmospheric, and whodunnit and why they dunnit is signposted in letters ten feet high. This doesn’t matter, because the whole is so good, but the reason behind the murder is wearyingly predictable. John Banville’s apparent obsession with the damage wrought by the Catholic church in Ireland would appear to have some way still to go..

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful