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

Timothy Dalton is an exceptional narrator

What did you love best about Christine Falls?

Story line was well thought out and well written. Characters were clear and well defined. Main character was complex but likable,

What did you like best about this story?

The best part was the voice of the narrator, clean, clear, good delineation of characters.

What about Timothy Dalton’s performance did you like?

He is a talented, strong, very experienced actor, and brings all of that expertise to this performance. The story line captures your interest almost immediately, and holds it throughout the book. He doesn't let go of your attention.

Dreary, monotonous melodrama badly read

Dalton's reading matches this book perfectly; a dull monotone with occasional melodramatic extra effort that succeeds only in sounding constipated, not dramatic. The book is plodding, with a minor wisp of a plot buried in mounds of meandering, pointless inner reflections of the stupid, stereotypic, unlikeable characters. The whole thing is both predictable and pointless.

It took me several determined attempts to get started listening to the book, and boy am I sorry I made the effort.

Predictable with unpleasant characters

Predictable plot that took a very, very long time to unfold. I can't think of a single main character who was interesting or attractive in any way. Waste of time and a credit.

award-winning author; very bad book

Kept listening; thought it had to get better from a Booker-winning author...not a single sympathetic character, and they must have let the author down too, 'cause he punishes them relentlessly. Misogynistic. Couple of jarring racist asides. Implausible crucial plot points. Bafflingly bad.

No go for me

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Nothing

What could Benjamin Black have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Not sure

How could the performance have been better?

Too.slow

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Good twists just not an enjoyable story linr very dull

Any additional comments?

Others may like this book, this is just not my personal style of reading

very slow

slow plodding doesn't get into plot for several chapters. once the actual story starts it still doesn't make sense as to way the main caracter gives a damn

Plodding, no plot, and incomplete characters

I wanted to like this so much. Timothy Dalton is a wonderful narrator and there is a sultry, atmospheric quality to the writing that appealed to me. However, the characters were never fully formed on the page, and the plot was not a mystery. I would question the characters' motivations if I ever saw them as people themselves. A disappointment that I would not recommend.

Didn't care / didn't finish

I gave up on this book about 2 hours from the end. Like another reviewer here, I realized I just didn't care about any of the characters and I wasn't curious to see what happened to them.

Can not recommend this read/listen

The author mostly spoke from inside the main characters thoughts and the actual dialogue played a lessor part. I kept hoping that I would care for or relate to a character in the story or the story itself, but it did not happen. For me, it was lacking from beginning to end. If I described it in a color, it would be Grey. At the beginning, there is an event which sparks the readers interest. Unfortunately as the story evolves, the characters are not that interesting and the ending is as the story read, flat.
If Mr. Daltons delivery was to evoke the tone of the book, he was very successful.

Didn't live up to its press

I like reading mystery novels set in different countries and different times so I thought this one would be fun. I was disappointed. The story is not very original, although some of the characters are. Don't know what more to say. I won't read more.