John Banville, called “the Irish Master” by The New Yorker, has apparently written over a dozen novels, none of which I had read (or could remember reading), so when Hanover Square/Harlequin and NetGalley provided a copy of Snow (in exchange for my honest review), I confess it sat in my TBR pile for awhile. With the pandemic and the world falling apart, I haven’t been in the mood for “literary fiction” — no, I’ve been reading mostly escapist fiction. I figured my brain would reject anything that made me think too much…

Reminiscent of an Agatha Christie-type mystery and set in 1957, the story features Detective Inspector St. John Strafford (“Sinjun” and “with an R”) as an Irish Detective Inspector who is sent off to investigate the murder of a Catholic priest at the ancestral home of the aristocratic, somewhat reclusive Osborne family. Strafford understands the Osbornes, as he was himself raised on an estate reminiscent of the Osbornes’ Ballyglass House. A crystal clear picture of the house where the murder occurred and its parallels to both the Strafford and the Osborne families is presented as the Detective first looks around the scene: “Only someone who had been born and brought up in a place like this, as he had, could know the particular, piercing fondness he felt before the sad spectacle of so much decay and decrepitude. Helpless nostalgia was the curse of his steadily dwindling caste.” 

Both these families are Protestant, but the  Catholic Church rules Ireland with an iron fist. Strafford wants to find the murderer, but faces obstruction from the Church, the silence of the close-knit community, and the weather, with the snow adding to the darkness and oppressive feeling that grows as the mystery unfolds. 

Strafford is an interesting and somewhat quirky figure: “he didn’t really know himself and didn’t care to.” Although he’s apparently a good detective, he “…wasn’t good at solving puzzles…always the danger, in his job, of seeing things that weren’t there, of making a pattern where there wasn’t one.” As his investigation continues, and his partner mysteriously vanishes, Strafford is challenged to understand the community’s secrets, the quirky Osbornes, and his own situation. 

It made me think, but not about the pandemic or the election. I was transported to the Irish countryside, and I loved it. I need to read more John Banville books!! Five stars.