In 1945 three friends jointly purchased a country home in a tiny Dorset village called Long Crichel, establishing unintentionally what became perhaps the most celebrated literary and intellectual salon in England in the twentieth century. The Crichel Boys, as they came to be known, were bonded by deep friendship and shared cultural interests. All were homosexual. Over several decades Long Crichel House attracted England’s artistic elite. Benjamin Britten, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Duncan Grant, Frances Partridge, and scores more were regular visitors, enjoying the civilized and relaxed hospitality of the three original owners – Eddy Sackville-West, Eardley Knollys, and Desmond Shawe-Taylor – and two others who bought into the house later.

The house and its owners feature often in diaries I love, such as those of James Lees-Milne and Frances Partridge, so I was eager to read Simon Fenwick’s book when I heard it had been published. Although I enjoyed it, it wasn’t quite what I expected, and I turned the final page with a slight sense of disappointment. Overall I feel Fenwick was unable to portray with equal vividness all five of the Crichel boys and to convey what daily life in the house was like. Nevertheless, I learned a lot from reading The Crichel Boys, not just about their unusual menage, but also about intellectual life in post-war England.

Feeling a little under the weather recently, I searched my bookshelves for a “comfort read”. Something undemanding, entertaining, and diverting. I came across Vengeance by John Banville (when he was still using Benjamin Black as his pseudonym). An old train ticket from 2013 used as a bookmark implied I had read the novel before, though how I might have forgotten the brilliant and shocking opening chapter is something I don’t want to think about too much. It’s a satisfying yarn, set in Dublin in the 1950s and featuring Dr. Quirke, the lonely curmudgeon who is the city’s official pathologist. The suicide of a prominent businessman and the subsequent murder of his partner draw Quirke into the shenanigans of Dublin’s upper middle class, where infidelity, backstabbing, and disloyalty are de rigeur.

Banville’s mystery novels depend to some degree on the reader’s willingness to suspend disbelief. How does a pathologist get so much latitude to do detective work and never step inside the mortuary or perform a postmortem? No matter. Quirke is a wonderful creation and Banville an exceptionally gifted writer. Vengeance proved to be the pick-me-up I needed.