Christine Falls

A Novel

By: Benjamin Black

Narrated by: Timothy Dalton

Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

It's not the dead that seem strange to Quirke. It's the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpse—and concealing the cause of death.

It turns out the body belonged to a young woman named Christine Falls. And as Quirke reluctantly presses on toward the true facts behind her death, he comes up against some insidious—and very well-guarded—secrets of Dublin's high Catholic society, among them members of his own family.

Set in Dublin and Boston in the 1950s, the first novel in the Quirke series brings all the vividness and psychological insight of Booker Prize winner John Banville's fiction to a thrilling, atmospheric crime story. Quirke is a fascinating and subtly drawn hero, Christine Falls is a classic tale of suspense, and Benjamin Black's debut marks him as a true master of the form.

©2006 Benjamin Black (P)2006 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Critic reviews

“Christine Falls is a triumph of classical crime fiction, finely, carefully made, not a single false move or wrong word--why don't they write books like this anymore?” —Alan Furst

So bleak almost it becomes parody.

Everyone is so steeped in misery I lost interest in the story. The writing is good and it's well performed but it's a joyless slog and the plot just isn't that interesting.

This story is nice.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes! I love listening to Timothy Dalton Narrate this story. his voice makes the characters come to life. I could fall asleep listening to his mellow deep husky voice.

What did you like best about this story?

EVERYTHING!

What does Timothy Dalton bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

HIS VOICE. his accent, his knowledge.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, Timothy Dalton voice is mesmerizing!

Any additional comments?

Nope, just keep them coming.

Southern accents?

Andy Stanford’s accent is way way off and even laughable.

I’d prefer less melodrama in the tone of voice

Great Listen

I start a lot of books I don't finish. I usually give it a couple of hours if it's an audiobook. Once I gave a book 7 hours before quitting because I thought it was going to get better; but it didn't ("An Unpardonable Crime"). This one got me from the first line. Timothy Dalton narrates with a deep rich Welsh accent - think Dylan Thomas if you've ever heard him, an octave lower, or Richard Burton. Of all of this audiobook's virtues, quite apart from how good it is substantially, the narration is its most attractive asset. If you like thrillers and mysteries that you don't have forgive the quality of the writing to enjoy, you'll love this. The writing is extraordinary.

The plot follows a more or less formulaic path, but illuminates the genre even as it moves through its generic rules. The setting is Dublin for the most part, and Boston in the 1950s. The protagonist, aptly named "Quirke" is a forensic patholigist (in the US we call them coroners) who, in the book's opening scene, stumbles upon his brother in law - also a doctor, an obstetrician - in the act of falsifying information in a file of one of the corpses Quirke hasn't examined yet. This initiates an obsession on Quirke's fault to find out what happened to this woman (the eponymous Christine Falls), who allegedly died giving birth to a stillborn infant girl. Well, the little girl wasn't stillborn, the truth leads Quirke on a journey into a darkness of which Christine Falls was only one of many victims, and that's all I'm going to tell you about the plot. I loved this audiobook and would recommend it over the print version, which from me, is a big compliment.

I was glued to this book--couldn't stop listening!

There are already many, many reviews of Christine Falls--so I don't want to add what's already been said. But hard not to--since this was simply one of the most compelling mystery novels I've heard in a while.

The meticulously detailed writing style brings the reader/listener directly into the story--that's what makes it so engaging I think--and the author's ability to create scenes in which tension builds, leaving the listener almost leaning forward--straining for all the next words to come is what makes it so fascinating. I don't know what this would have been like to have simply read it, but the narrator managed to infuse this with a good sense of the feeling of menace and evil from the beginning.

I gave the narrator one less star--but I'm not sure it was his fault. It could have been the recording itself--but his voice was the slightest bit muffled in places--so I had to rewind to listen (but rewind I did--as I was unwilling to miss even one word of this gripping story!)

Is this a true mystery crime novel? Not in the classic detective sense, but there are mysterious things afoot, there is murder, and there is someone who cannot give up on trying to find out what is going on that causes all this. However, it also read like a piece of fiction--powerful writing--that happened to have a mysterious, evil underpinning. Take your choice I suppose.

This book spans a lot of territory--two continents, families, the catholic church, and only after it was finished, did I realize that it was also a subtle exploration of the ways women (at least in that time/place) were treated as diminished, demeaned and/or expendable in many of the roles. There are several plot lines that explore that topic without it ever being totally obvious. I don't know if the author intended the reader to put that with the culture and the church aspects--or if it was simply the way things were in the early 1950's, or just the author's perspective for this book. Whatever the intent of the author, I believe it was one of the sub-messages of the book.

I highly recommend--but will suggest this. Don't listen till you have a whole day to sit and do nothing else. You shouldn't try to do your housework, exercise in a gym, or even drive in a car while listening to this--because you don't want to take your attention away for even one moment!

Stellar book

Deep mysterious characters with a thrilling narrator. Dalton has this vocal style down pat. I knew where the story was probably going, but the journey still made it a deep down ride through human muck. Quirke is a new excellent character, going to enjoy the other books.

Well prepared misery and gloom

If you like your lamb kidneys with boiled potatoes and peas washed down with a very bitter stout, chased by copious cheap whisky, the rain pouring down outside the noisy, cigarette smoked out pub you are in after walking through it from a nearby grim cathedral stinking of incense, dust, and the fabrics of old dried up priests and nuns, and puddling up the guilt in your shoes; toss on the plate as well a narrator whose cadences evoke the novel's bitter aromatics of corruption among the 50s Irish upper crust and the even more corrupt Irish Catholic church in its American iteration--skeazy sex, twisted marriages, bad, bad grandpas, alcoholism, rape, torture, child abuse, and murder, you'll love this. No one in this is likeable in the least, but it is immaculately written by a master of vivid sentence construction, and its strong flavor is oddly compelling. Not something I would make a steady diet of, but certainly a fine dining, one Michelin star noir, about which you may well be talking later. Quirky and bleak.

Almost -

He is a very good writer, and I could love the main character, but the story falls apart at the end to the point of unplausable. I won't both with the rest of the series.

Don't Quit Your Day Job!

Timothy Dalton's overwrought narrative made this book a labor to finish. It seemed to be a parody of an actor who's trying way too hard. I was amazed that in the Audible review they mentioned Dalton's Irish brogue. Irish it wasn't, Gerald Doyle would have been much better suited for this story, The story was just ok. The lead character Quirk wasn't all that likable and the plot just passable and the twist and turns were easily seen coming. The best I can say about the book is that it wasn't horrible.

Christine Falls - Very Dark

Christine Falls is a very, very dark novel. I don't think that sun is even allowed to exist. The finale also falls short of any high expectations.