John Benjamin Banville-Black

Slate has an article on John Banville’s (writing as Benjamin Black but disclosing that fact on the jacket) Christine Falls.

But what is the point of taking on a pseudonym only to identify it as such immediately? And what are we to make of the simplistic art/craft distinction he has used to defend this noir effort? One suspects that Banville, like the archly unreliable poet-madmen who have narrated his previous novels for almost 20 years, is playing games with us.

Yes, one does suspect.