Christine Falls

"Quirke and Malachy Griffin were raised as brothers, though Quirke - rescued from an Irish orphanage by Malachy's father, the eminent Judge Garrett Griffin - was always the favored son. But Malachy married the American girl Quirke loved, and Quirke settled for her sister, who died in childbirth soon thereafter. Malachy went on to become a prominent obstetrician and Quirke a hard-drinking pathologist, and for the past twenty years the two have coexisted uneasily as brothers-in-law as well as rivals." "Then one night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down to the morgue and…