I’ve read Banville/Black’s 6 earlier novelss in this series and enjoyed them all. Prior to those I read most of his stand-alone literary fiction. Banville has his own unique style which will likely never pull off a James Patterson type thriller. That’s okay – he does his own thing and the last couple chapters of this book were plenty twisty.

The Drownedby John Banville 
2024
Read by John Lee 
Rating – 8 (but I’ll read it again)
Strafford and Quirke series #4

I can’t say if I liked the literary fiction better or the mystery/crime novels because I think it depends on the individual book – and in this case they’re very close.  Fwiw, Banville says he tried the crime fiction to see if he could do it and after about 5 or so novels he was satisfied with the effort and dropped the pseudonym he’d been using for the crime novels, Benjamin Black.  Literary miysteries are hard to do well – the author has to include some very literary elements, like interesting language and theme development or maybe using an original structure, etc plus themes and complex characters in addition to a good plot.  

The Drowned is seventh in the series and I’d highly recommend starting with #1 because the relationships of the main protagonists need be followed chronologically. .