Synopsis
Inspired by the crimes of Malcolm Macarthur in Ireland, 1982, The Book of Evidence by John Banville is a gripping portrait of a cold, deceptive and utterly unprecedented killer, shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
'Banville writes a dangerous and clear-running prose and has a grim gift of seeing people's souls' – Don DeLillo, author of White Noise and Libra
Freddie Montgomery has committed two crimes. He stole a small Dutch master – an unattributed painting of a middle-aged woman – from a wealthy family friend. And he murdered a chambermaid who caught him in the act, bludgeoning her to death with a hammer.
An eccentric narcissist, he has little to say about the woman he killed. He travels through life without any apparent remorse. He killed her, he says, because he was physically capable of it. It made sense to him.
However, as he narrates his testimony, there is one thing he cannot understand. One thing he would desperately like to know. Why did he want to steal the painting?
'Remarkable' – Ruth Rendell, author of the Inspector Wexford novels
The Book of Evidence is the first in John Banville's acclaimed Frames Trilogy. It is followed by Ghosts and Athena.
Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.
Details
02 October 2025
9781035076796Reviews
Remarkable . . . If all crime novels were like this one, there would no longer be the need for a genreRuth Rendell, author of the Inspector Wexford series
The Book of Evidence is a major work of fiction in which every suave moment calmly detonates to show the murderous gleam within. Banville writes a dangerous and clear-running prose and has a grim gift of seeing people's soulsDon DeLillo, author of Underworld, Cosmopolis and Mao II
Banville has excelled himself in a flawlessly flowing prose whose lyricism, patrician irony and aching sense of loss are reminiscent of LolitaThe Observer
One of the most important writers now at work in English – a key thinker, in fact, in fictionLondon Review of Books
