No, Strafford thought, there was no sense to it. The thing was entirely implausible, and yet there it was, the deed was done, the man was dead. He felt as if he were stumbling through a snowstorm, the snow dense and blindingly white. There were others around him, also moving, dim grey ghosts, and when he reached out to touch them he grasped only an icy emptiness. It's 1957, Ireland. Detective Inspector St. John Strafford is sent to a small village in County Wexford to investigate the gruesome murder of a Catholic priest. He was the guest of a retired protestant colonel who lived in a big, old mansion. St John a was an interesting main character, not your stereotypical smoker, drink-to-oblivion kind of detective. If anything, it has gained more power in recent years, as we see Turkish democracy facing ever harder challenges, and various traditions clashing with liberal ideas and freedom of thought. As history moves on, the story of the Istanbul journalist who visits remote Kars to investigate young women's suicides becomes more real, and relevant, and the questions raised shine in a bright new light.

DI St John Strafford is called from Dublin, and arrives at Ballyglass House, county Wexford, to find the murdered corpse of the Catholic priest, Father Tom, and this same corpse is lying dead in the house of the Protestant aristocratic Osbourne family. A parish priest has been found dead in Ballyglass House, the family seat of the aristocratic and secretive Osborne family. Even though the Osborne family is Protestant, the Catholic priest is a frequent (often overnight) guest because he enjoys the conversation and the drink. He also keeps a stabled horse there.Written in 2002, this novel predates Pamuk’s winning of the Nobel Prize in 2006. The Goodreads blurb says “Snow, which he describes as “my first and last political novel” was published in 2002. In this book set in the small city of Kars in northeastern Turkey he experimented with a new type of ‘political novel,’ telling the story of violence and tension between political Islamists, soldiers, secularists, and Kurdish and Turkish nationalists. Snow was selected as one of the best 100 books of 2004 by The New York Times.” Snow is the second-most popular book of the author (1952-) in English translation after My Name is Red.

However, the author's description of people and Irish society is full of rich imagery, with a sharp eye for detail. How could it possibly have come about that a Catholic priest, ‘a friend of the house’, should be lying here dead in his own blood, in Ballyglass House, hereditary seat of the Osbornes, of the ancient barony of Scarawalsh, in the county of Wexford? What, indeed, would the neighbours say? Other than this, the way the characters' love for each other blossoms and shows, both romantically and not, is truly commendable. The story is set in the pre-war era and, as mentioned in the story itself quite a few times, it is a modern setting. Something people today would relate with and would appreciate nonetheless.It has snowed continuously for two days, and this morning everything appeared to stand in hushed amazement before the spectacle of such expanses of unbroken whiteness on all sides. People said it was unheard of, that they had never known weather like it, that it was the worst winter in living memory. But they said that every year when it snowed, and also in years when it didn’t snow. dönemi, kendi tarzını bulduğu ve benim en sevdiğim dönemi. Kara Kitap, Yeni Hayat, Benim Adım Kırmızı romanlarında görüyoruz bunu ve deneysel, okuyucuyu zorlayan (bence öyle değil ama insanlar zorlanıyor garip bir şekilde) bir tarzı var. Burada yine doğu-batı çatışmasının müthiş bir şekilde işlendiğini görüyoruz, ki ben bu mevzunun üstüne kafa yorulmadan Türkiye'nin anlaşılamayacağını düşünüyorum. With a snow storm brewing up, everybody is cooped up inside apart from Strafford’s (with an R) assistant who’s gone missing. I did enjoy the bashful air of Banville’s young inspector. Also, the equally sexy and menacing presence of the femme fatales who hover around him, wanting to be burnt like moths to a scorching light. The story is built in the classic way with plenty of elegant pauses that say way more than unnecessary words. Cadence is one of Banville’s strong points and it might be the best of this book. And even tho Orhan got one poem down we don't get to see it. We don't get to see any of these perfect poems Ka wrote and it angers me so much. Why mention them in the first place if they won't even actually be in the book? Or is it because the writer can't write poems or get a poet friend to write them for him?