In Black And White

Michael Dibdin, accomplished murder mystery author himself, finds much to praise in Benjamin Black's Christine Falls: "It would be absurd to suggest that Banville writing as Black is better than Banville writing as Banville, but in a different and yet fascinatingly similar way he is every bit as good, and deserves to win a new, broader readership with this fine book."

In The Independent, Banville speaks of the genesis of the novel: "It was quite simple. About three years ago I began to read Georges Simenon, not the Maigret novels but the non-formulaic books, his hard novels, and I wanted to try and see if I could write that sort of thing in that simple, direct style. I had a TV script which wasn't going anywhere. But when I decided that it should become a novel every single line of dialogue had to be changed. When you write dialogue for a script you have to do in a very flat way, to allow the director and the actors to do their stuff. But when it's a novel that's all there is: the words on the page."