Snow: A Novel

Written by John Banville

Narrated by John Lee

*NATIONAL BESTSELLER*

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA HISTORICAL DAGGER AWARD*

A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year

A New York Times Editors’ Choice Pick

“Banville sets up and then deftly demolishes the Agatha Christie format…superbly rich and sophisticated.”—New York Times Book Review

The incomparable Booker Prize winner’s next great crime novel—the story of a family whose secrets resurface when a parish priest is found murdered in their ancestral home

Detective Inspector St. John Strafford has been summoned to County Wexford to investigate a murder. A parish priest has been found dead in Ballyglass House, the family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family.

The year is 1957 and the Catholic Church rules Ireland with an iron fist. Strafford—flinty, visibly Protestant and determined to identify the murderer—faces obstruction at every turn, from the heavily accumulating snow to the culture of silence in the tight-knit community he begins to investigate.

As he delves further, he learns the Osbornes are not at all what they seem. And when his own deputy goes missing, Strafford must work to unravel the ever-expanding mystery before the community’s secrets, like the snowfall itself, threaten to obliterate everything.

Beautifully crafted, darkly evocative and pulsing with suspense, Snow is “the Irish master” (New Yorker) John Banville at his page-turning best.

Don't miss John Banville's next novel, The Lock-up!

Other riveting mysteries from John Banville: 

• April in Spain

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harlequin Audio
• Release date: Oct 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781488209505

John Banville

John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of many highly acclaimed and prize-winning novels including The Sea, which won the 2005 Booker Prize. He has been awarded the Franz Kafka Prize and a literary award from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Dublin.

Reviews for Snow

[Amy Wolfe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was fairly predictable. Much of the the plot was clichéd, even hackneyed.

[Nia Spencer · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The second interlude of this book was disgusting. An abomination. Like sick porn. I experienced intense and prolonged nausea while, and long after reading it. The “justifications” for the unjustifiable. The attempted humanization of grave depravity. All just awful. And including these graphic details added nothing to the story. Did not advance the plot at all. Which made them feel completely gratuitous. Truly revolting to read - except maybe for child molesters. From that point on, the book was totally horrifying. There was a brief sense of comeuppance toward the end, quickly dashed by the clear implication that the cycle of abuse would continue and be visited upon more helpless little boys.
Second: the “mystery” was easy to solve within the book’s first few chapters. I kept reading, hoping to be surprised by some type of plot twist but nope. The person who immediately seemed like they did it turned out to be the person who did it. Spare yourself. Read anything but this.