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  • The Lock-Up

  • A Strafford and Quirke Murder Mystery
  • By: John Banville
  • Narrated by: Stanley Townsend
  • Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (53 ratings)
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The Lock-Up cover art

The Lock-Up

By: John Banville
Narrated by: Stanley Townsend
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Summary

'The ultimate page-turner.' Irish Independent

'Like drinking Bollinger when your usual tipple is Babycham.' The Times

The Sunday Times bestselling author of Snow and April in Spain returns with Strafford and Quirke's most troubling case yet.

1950s Dublin. in a lock-up garage in the city, the body of a young woman is discovered - an apparent suicide. But pathologist Dr Quirke and Detective Inspector Strafford soon suspect foul play.

The victim's sister, a newspaper reporter from London, returns to Dublin to join the two men in their quest to uncover the truth. But, as they explore her links to a wealthy German family in County Wicklow, and to investigative work she may have been doing in Israel, they are confronted with an ever-deepening mystery. With relations between the two men increasingly strained, and their investigation taking them back to the final days of the Second World War, can they join the pieces of a hidden puzzle?

©2023 Faber & Faber (P)2023 Faber & Faber

What listeners say about The Lock-Up

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good story development, interesting historical backdrop, great characters

I really enjoyed this. It’s a different kind of crime story with an unexpected twist at the end, the historical background is really interesting. The reading was good too.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Dublin in the 1960s - wonderfully recalled

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the atmosphere, the dialogue and the characters. Minor point: surely Quirke had an ulcer? So many people like him had stomach ulcers back then.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Banville at his masterful best!

Thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing with all the charm we’ve come to expect from 1950s Dublin, but most of all, the engaging and poetic writing of Banville.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Absolutely Brilliant!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - the characters, locations and plot are exciting and so vividly drawn by Mr Banville - I literally could not stop listening and only interrupted my listening to go to sleep! Stanley Townsend is an exceptional actor and so I am not surprised that his performance of the book was rich with colour, tone and fabulous accents that conjured the world of the piece to perfection. Thank you - my only regret was that it came to an end!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A literary delight

Such an atmospheric tale, picking up the threads from the previous books. Characters’ complexities and subtle links revealed along the way in compelling language.
Stanley Townsend is a marvel.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Vintage Banville

Quirke confirms the inner dialogue of all men as hovering between curmudgeon to misanthrope, and ultimately disgust and self disgust for all humanity, oneself included. I normally end up laughing to myself after a passage of Quirke interior monologue. They reassure me I’m not the only one who is tormented by such thoughts. Nice also to see how Bishop Tom, McQuaid in Dundrum and other representatives of the “old hocus pocus” as Banville describes religion, being set up as omnipotent in those times. One can only enjoy from our point in the viewing gallery of time the guiltless schadenfreude of how Ireland has watched those great totems fallen from grace with descent of Bishop Casey and others. How and why could they ever have had such a supremacy of power. Anyways, I’ll be bored now waiting for the next Banville opus to be published.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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Loved it

One of those books where you didn’t want the story to end

Made all the more enjoyable by the brilliant reading on Audible

Must listen to more of Banville

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A wonderful few hours spent with John Banville’s characters

John Banville’s beautiful prose never fails to excite me. Great story even though I was not sure about the ending?
The Quirke series of books are very enjoyable. Banville’s descriptions can be wonderfully funny, bitterly bleak, occasionally sumptuous but always satisfying.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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Beautifully read

Excellent plot very well drawn and characters plausible and relatable. Would recommend this beautiful book with it’s interesting characters .

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Entertaining

Performance excellent. Historical setting believable- brings reader into that era effectively. Twist in the reveal was an additional bonus. Didn’t experience the same level of absorption in the story as ‘Snow’ however.

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1 person found this helpful