“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Sunday, May 20, 2007

The Monday Review / Interweb Mash-Up Super-Baloohaha

Kind words yet again for Irish crime writers from Marilyn Stasio at the New York Times: "No one brings down the temple with more outrageous wit and style than Ruth Dudley Edwards," she says of Murdering Americans, while Tana French (right) is celebrated for In The Woods' 'vivid' scene-setting and the 'lyrical ferocity of her writing'. Meanwhile, Eurocrime comes over all unnecessary about Brian McGilloway's Borderlands, the gist of which runneth, "Small but perfectly formed, this little gem of a book ... is excellent and well-written." In other news, John Boyne scooped the Children's Books Ireland Bisto Book of the Year to absolutely no one's surprise (insert your own 'gravy train' gag here), while Ever The Idealist has declared John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things (left) the best novel he has ever read, like, ever: "John Connolly manages to combine outrageous yet believable fantasy with horrific murders while he entertains you with a story that holds you in thrall." Sweetness incarnate, say we. Moving swiftly on ... Glen Dimplex and the Irish Writers' Centre have announced that the Glen Dimplex New Writers' Awards 2007 will have a total prize fund of €45,000, divided across five categories, the awards going to the best first book published in the last year in Ireland and the UK ... Hang about - have we introduced you to Garbhan Downey yet? Hold on there while the Sunday Business Post's Andrew Lynch stops chatting him up and we'll make with the necessaries ... Finally, radiofreeubu gives a big shout-out to the Millipede Press for re-publishing David Goodis' Street of No Return (right), which will make a suitably sordid companion piece to Hard Case Crime's re-publication of Goodis' The Wounded and the Slain. And remember - Goodis things happen to Goodis people, folks ... you can't say you haven't been warned.

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