The Book of Evidence
John Banville
09 October 2014
9781447275367Synopsis
With an introduction by Colm TĂłibĂn
Shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize, The Book of Evidence by John Banville is a dark and unsettling crime classic. This special 25th anniversary edition features extra material.
Frederick Charles St John Vanderveld Montgomery. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Don't make me laugh.
Freddie Montgomery has committed two crimes. He stole a Dutch old-master painting from a wealthy family friend and murdered the chambermaid who caught him in the act. Narcissistic, greedy and reckless, Freddie travels through life apparently without remorse. However, as he narrates his testimony, he realises that the only person to be held responsible for his life, and his crimes, is himself. He just can't quite admit it yet . . .
Shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize, John Banville's The Book of Evidence is a wonderfully dark, insightful and unnerving crime novel that takes us deep into the unreliable mind of an improbable murderer.
Remarkable. . . If all crime novels were like this one, there would no longer be the need for a genreRuth Rendell
The Book of Evidence is a major work of fiction in which every suave moment calmly detonates to show the murderous gleam within. Banville writes a dangerous and clear-running prose and has a grim gift of seeing people's soulsDon DeLillo
Banville has excelled himself in a flawlessly flowing prose whose lyricism, patrician irony and aching sense of loss are reminiscent of LolitaObserver
