A Death in Summer – review round up

Benjamin Black – aka John Banville – is back for another round of detective fun with A Death in Summer. Does the crossover magic work for a fifth outing?
 
In the Guardian, Mark Lawson admires the way Black’s hero, Quirke, alludes to heroes of the detective genre: “He is known only by his surname (Dexter’s Morse), is an alcoholic chainsmoker (Rankin’s Rebus), loves poetry (P.D. James’s Dalgleish), has a difficult relationship with a daughter (Mankell’s Wallander) and has difficulty in sustaining relationships (everyone’s everyone).” What such allusion amounts to, Lawson claims, is ‘a respect for the form in which he has chosen to work.” On which note, Lawson adds: “…the knowing references to 007 elsewhere, made me think that Banville would be an interesting bet for one of the Bond continuations…’ Such a move would, indeed, have historical precedent: Kinglsey Amis won the Booker and also wrote a Bond novel.