The Lemur: A Novel

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Customer Reviews:

Originally serialized novella lacks depth [Posted on 2008-09-06]
Originally serialized in The New York Times Magazine, this novella doesn't meet the standards of Black's Quirke novels. Irish journalist John Glass has given up reporting on foreign wars and accepted a commission from his wealthy and powerful American father-in-law, "Big Bill," to write the old man's biography.

His reduced role in the world - complacent, unfaithful husband of a rich wife, occupying a glassed-in office in the old man's Manhattan skyscraper - doesn't square with his war-correspondent persona. There may be such people, but Black never convinces and the story - a dark secret in the past and a murder in the present - is Chandleresque but ordinary.

Black (pseudonym of award-winning novelist John Banville) is a fine writer, but readers interested in his noir books should turn to his Dublin pathologist Quirke series, beginning with "Christine Falls."

disappointing at best [Posted on 2008-10-05]
After reading Christine Falls and The Silver Swan, i found this to be a huge disappointment. As another reviewer wrote, the brevity of this story does not allow Black to show that he is a very talented mystery writer. I actually had a hard time getting through this book, or really wanting to find out the identity of the murderer. If I hadn't had high expectations for this book, based on previous Benjamin Black books, I probably wouldn't have even finished the book. Hopefully Black's next mystery will have more developed characters and a more complex plot.

Short Book, Great Mystery [Posted on 2008-10-21]
The book cover caught my eye first: a cloud of smoke obscuring the face of a young man. Then, the author's name. By now most avid fiction readers are aware that Benjamin Black is the pseudonym for John Banville, a respected and prize-winning author. I enjoyed Christine Falls, so some weeks later I was delighted to receive The Lemur as an Early Review book from Library Thing.

This very slender novel contains a mystery story with a punch. John Glass is in the awkward position of writing the biography of his wealthy, politically connected father-in-law, Bill Mulholland. This is complicated by the fact that his marriage to Bill's daughter is on shaky ground at best.

The story moves quickly under Black's skilled pen and within a few pages John has made contact with "the Lemur", a shady researcher who claims to have less than flattering information on Mr. Mulholland. Before John can even learn what this information is the "Lemur" is murdered and John has all kinds of problems on his hands. The momentum is accelerated as John begins to do his own research and the risks and the suspense climb steeply.

With Benjamin Black at the helm, this is truly superb writing, and it lends a grace and elegance to an excellent mystery. This read was quick, by highly satisfying. I'm still eager to get my hands on The Black Swan, the sequel to Christine Falls.

slight [Posted on 2008-11-09]
To call this novella slight is perhaps too much praise. There are so few characters that there is little thought required to determine who' dun' it and it is almost writing by numbers. The characters are stereotypes that we are all familiar with from countless TV detective dramas.
The writing is terse and could almost be culled sentence by sentence from a myriad similar novels.
As an admirere of Banvilles previous work and even the first two Black novels all I can say is 'How the mighty are fallen'.
This book wasn't so much a detective novel as daylight robbery.

a lesser effort [Posted on 2008-11-22]
Banville is my favorite living author and I provide this review with a heavy heart. Before the publication of this book and (it must be) with tongue firmly in cheek based on the succeeding events. Banville informed a room full of his devotees at a book signing event that he would not attempt a novel in the current time sited in the United States. He said that he couldn't catch the language and as we all sagely nodded, language is perhaps the element of his work that enchants his most fervent admirers. Well, he must have either known this book was a very poor effort or been joking. I vote for the first and suggest it may be a joke of some kind intended to demonstrate how very good Banville can be when he stays with the timeless and vaguely European rather than the contemporary and very different context attempted in the book reviewed. Read The Sea and if you must read the Lemur for the sake of exhausting banville's canon (my personal goal), then forgive him because this one just isn not up to snuff (to use an more antique turn of phrase in honor of the real Banville voice).

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