Wolf on a String

Reviews

"It's outstandingly read by Simon Vance, whose versatility with voices and intonations brings the cast to life." - NJ.com

"Black's richly layered storytelling is vivid and unforgettable." -BookPage

"John Banville's novel Kepler was published in 1981. Now, using the pen name he has adopted for his mystery novels, he returns to [an] exciting era when science and superstition were battling for supremacy.... The ornate style of [the] narrative suits both this rich historical period and the courtly language of Prague, this 'city of masks and make-believe.' "–The New York Times Book Review

“Black [is] a master of high-class crime fiction, literary noir in the tradition of Georges Simenon and Raymond Chandler…. In characteristically gorgeous prose, he conjures a wintry world of opportunists and occultists, dwarves and hunchbacks, wolves and shadowy black-winged beasts….The marvelously evoked ‘city of masks and make-believe’ is the [novel’s] great pleasure.” –The Guardian

"Immensely enjoyable.... A gem of a book, presented without pretension but with the literary flair that Banville/Black brings to all of his books." –St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"It’s Prague in the late 1500s, where the eccentric Rudolf II rules the Holy Roman Empire.... As you’d expect from a Man Booker winner like Banville, [this] plunge into palace intrigue and power struggles is spirited, vivid, and soulful." –The Seattle Times

"Black's 16th century murder mystery is rife with twists and turns, and his characters' dialogue convincingly captures the history and social issues of the period."–NJ.com

“If the Benjamin Black novels are, in the John Banville corpus, the equivalent of Graham Greene’s ‘entertainments,’ [Wolf on a String] must go down as one of the most entertaining…. The interplay of such twinned contraries—stars and darkness, snow and stone, desire and destruction, Black and Banville; each entity illuminating the other—also supply the sparkling style and steely themes of the engrossing, wide-ranging, sneakily ambitious work.” –The Irish Times

“A swirling kaleidoscope of intrigue, art, blood, sex and magic…. Cleverly, and often amusingly, Black introduces several real characters to his fictional narrative…. A stirring, captivating and perfectly enjoyable read.” –Independent (Ireland)

"Black displays his mastery of yet another mystery sub-genre in this brooding, atmospheric whodunit set in 16th-century Prague…. Superior prose complements the intricate plot.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Rich, expansive…. [A] dark, vivid mural of Prague at the turn of the 16th century.” –Kirkus Reviews