Praise for Elegy for April " Elegy for April [is] the best and most assured of the lot." -- The New York Times "The writing has an elegance and nimbleness that surpass almost all other genre fiction." -- Los Angeles Times "Gorgeously precise and expressive prose." -- The Guardian "A beguiling read." -- The Times (London) "A gorgeously sad and atmospheric book about family, lust, friendship and ''50s-style repression." -- The Seattle Times "Banville''s new tale of misdeeds is powerfully written, laced with lyrical visual imagery about a distant Ireland still getting used to the 20th century and peopled with sharply drawn characters." -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Cool, atmospheric.Banville has raised the bar for the soul''s-night genre.
" -- The Dallas Morning News "The greatest satisfactions of reading Elegy for April come from the atmosphere of 1950s Dublin, in which coal-fire-assisted smog impairs visibility." -- The Denver Post "In Elegy for April , [Banville has impairs visibility." -- The Denver Post "In Elegy for April , [Banville has impairs visibility." -- The Denver Post "In Elegy for April , [Banville has impairs visibility." -- The Denver Post "In Elegy for April , [Banville has] nailed down the recipe, the style and pace that allows him to craft a story of suspense while filling it with sharp-eyed, bigger picture observations." -- Time Out Chicago "A master of atmosphere; the fear and dread associated with hidden desires and deeds fairly leap off the page." -- Library Journal (starred review) "[Banville''s] engrossing third crime thriller set in 1950s Dublin finds pathologist Garret Quirke fresh from a stint in alcohol rehab.[Banville] is equally concerned with exploring the idea of family and loyalty as with spinning a suspenseful whodunit, and his depiction of a fragile father-daughter relationship is as powerful as the unsettling truth behind April''s disappearance.
" -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Quirke, the haunted Dublin pathologist and haphazard sleuth, returns in the third in [Banville''s] superb series of sharply etched, nearly Jamesian mysteries.In [Banville''s] atmospheric and penetrating works of Irish noir, pain, prejudice, greed, and violence brew behind lace curtains." -- Booklist (starred review) "What sets it apart is the uncanny ability of [Banville] to bring his characters alive with flashes of piercing insight, whether Quirke''s dealing with his stepmother-in-law or learning to drive." -- Kirkus Praise for John Banville "Ireland''s greatest living novelist.a literary polymath." -- The New York Times "A grand writer with a seductive style." -- The New York Times Book Review "The Irish master." -- The New Yorker "One of the best novelists in English.
" -- The Guardian "One of the most imaginative literary novelists writing in the English language today." -- The Washington Post "[Banville''s] books are like baroque cathedrals." -- The Paris Review "Prodigiously gifted. He cannot write an unpolished phrase." -- The Independent "One periodically rereads a [Banville] sentence just to marvel at its beauty." -- USA Today "Banville is a master at capturing the most fleeting memory or excruciating twinge of self-awareness with riveting accuracy." -- People.