John Banville’s April in Spain
…But this is a crime drama, not a comedy of manners. So, Banville opens the story in London with the gunsel Terry Tice, who “liked killing people.” He also liked collecting new words like gunsel, “a word Terry had picked up from some old movie, he couldn’t remember which one. He liked it. Terry the gunsel.” I’ll bet the movie was The Maltese Falcon (1941). “Let’s give ’em the gunsel,” Spade tells Gutman near the end. Although Terry imagines himself like Richard Widmark’s Fabian in Night and the City (1950), he’s more like Elisha Cook Jr.’s Wilmer the gunsel: a killer—short, slight, and hot-tempered; he’s not much of a planner, but not the usual eejit, either.
You can read my review of John Banville’s April in Spain in The Brooklyn Rail by clicking the image below.
You can buy John Banville’s April in Spain at Barnes & Noble.
