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John Banville's historical mystery is set in a heavily snowed in Christmas period in Ireland, County Wexford, in 1957, featuring 35 year old Protestant Dublin Inspector St John Strafford sent to the scene of a gruesome murder of a Catholic Father Tom Lawless at the dilapidated and cold manor, Ballyglass, belonging to the aristocratic Colonel Geoffrey Osborne. Discovered in the early hours of the morning by Sylvia, the insomniac wife of Osborne, the body is in the library, all so very Agatha Christie, and the crime scene has been interfered with. The victim was a regular house visitor, with his horse, Mr Sugar, stabled there. It is an unheard of crime, the stabbing of a member of the Catholic clergy, the horror compounded by the removal of his genitals.

Powerful influences make their mark, particularly the raw absolute power of the Catholic Church under Archbishop Dr McQuaid, there is little intention of making the true details of the murder public, with mendacious press statements that refer to the murder as an accident and there is distinct pressure to try to ensure Strafford's investigation fails. Strafford, like the Protestant Osborne, is from the same class and background, an outsider in the mainly Catholic police force, an isolated observer, alone and lonely, cut adrift, feeling out of his depth. His interior life reveals a uncertain, detached and under-confident man, dwelling on how he is in the wrong profession, that he should have been a lawyer, but there is a core within him that rebels against the cover up, driving his determination to find the killer. The case reeks of theatricalism, given the snow, the killer must have been a member of the household, all of whom are acting roles that come across as inauthentic.

Banville's focus is on revealing a detailed picture of Ireland in the 1950s, the lowly position of women, the suppression of sexuality, the turning of blind eyes to overt wrong doing, the religious and class divisions, the propensity of the powerful, individuals and institutions, like the Catholic Church, to feel untouchable, covering up abuses with impunity, and totally unaccountable. Given the spectacular fall from grace of the Irish Catholic Church in more recent times, the motivation behind the killing of Father Tom Lawless is not that hard to figure out, the author gives Lawless a voice in the narrative, providing a personal explanation of how he came to be who he is. A fascinating and engaging read of a specific period of time in Irish history. Many thanks to Faber and Faber for an ARC.