Featured Book:  April in Spain

Booker Prize winner John Banville's Quirke returns for a dramatic new mystery on the Spanish coast--a dark and evocative follow-up to national bestseller Snow

Don't disturb the dead...

On the idyllic coast of San Sebastian, Spain, Dublin pathologist Quirke is struggling to relax, despite the beaches, caf's and the company of his disarmingly lovely wife. When he glimpses a familiar face in the twilight at Las Acadas bar, it's hard at first to tell whether his imagination is just running away with him.

Because this young woman can't be April Latimer. She was murdered by her brother, years ago--the conclusion to an unspeakable scandal that shook one of Ireland's foremost political dynasties.

Unable to ignore his instincts, Quirke makes a call back home to Ireland and soon Detective St. John Strafford is dispatched to Spain. But he's not the only one en route. A relentless hit man is on the hunt for his latest prey, and the next victim might be Quirke himself.

Sumptous, propulsive and utterly transporting, April in Spain is the work of a master writer at the top of his game.

John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of eighteen novels including The Sea, which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. In 2011 he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, in 2013 he was awarded the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature, and in 2014 he won the Prince of Asturias Award, Spain's most important literary prize. He lives in Dublin.

Barbara Lane is the books columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle and director of events at Copperfield's Books.