John Banville s stunning powers of mimicry are brilliantly on display in thisengrossing novel the darkly compelling confession of an improbable murderer.Freddie... » 

John Banville s stunning powers of mimicry are brilliantly on display in thisengrossing novel the darkly compelling confession of an improbable murderer.Freddie Montgomery is a highly cultured man a husband and father living thelife of a dissolute exile on a Mediterranean island. When a debt comes due andhis wife and child are held as collateral he returns to Ireland to securefunds. That pursuit leads to murder. And here is his attempt to presentevidence not of his innocence but of his life of the events that lead to themurder he committed because he could. Like a hero out of Nabokov or CamusMontgomery is a chillingly articulate selfaware and amoral being whosehumanity is painfully on display. «