The Quirke series of crime novels, written by Irish novelist John Banville under the pen name Benjamin Black, centres on the titular character, a pathologist in 1950s Dublin. The series is published by Henry Holt & Co. in the US. The first novel, Christine Falls, was first released by Picador in the UK in 2006; it was published in the US a year later. Banville has stated that he drew from his experiences when he first moved to Dublin to inform the Quirke series: Quirke lives in the apartment in Dublin which I inherited from my aunt and he moves around in that area where I was when I first moved to Dublin. He's better off than we were in those days, but yes, it's soaked in my recollections. It is more connected to the circumstances of my life than my Banville books. The eighth novel in the series, April in Spain, features the character St. John Strafford, who is also a character in other Banville works. Source: Wikipedia (en)