Benjamin Black is the pen name of acclaimed author John Banville, who was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of fifteen novels, including The Sea , which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. In 2013 he was awarded the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature, and in 2014 the Quirke novels were adapted into a major BBC TV series. This is the seventh book in the acclaimed Quirke series.