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For me, the most interesting, indeed surprising thing about this book was that John Banville put his own name to it and not the pseudonym Benjamin Black which he's used in the past for his noir novels. I enjoyed those books initially but I eventually grew tired of the repetition of themes so I wouldn't have picked this up if I'd known it was more of the same. Admittedly, he's created a new and very different detective figure in this one, but the two principal characters from his noir series pop up here again so it's definitely out of the same stable. In any case the themes are identical: 1950s Ireland, and in particular the way society was dominated by the Catholic Church. In this story he focuses on clerical child abuse, ripping into it fiercely and presenting it as if viewed through his trademark whiskey glass. The main difference between this book and the Black series, apart from the author's name on the cover is that the story is not told from the point of view of a member of the majority Catholic population but through the eyes of one of the small minority of Protestants in the country at that time. There's also the fact that although whiskey glasses are mentioned a lot, the main character doesn't actually enjoy drinking it.