“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

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

This Week We’re Reading … End Games and Julius Winsome

‘The last Aurelio Zen mystery’ proclaims the cover, dashing the hopes of those bereft Michael Dibdin fans who might have been hoping there was a draft or two stashed away in a desk drawer that might some day be posthumously published. But no – the very fine End Games, prophetically enough, is where Zen finally runs out of time. Ironically, given the way Zen has been ducking and diving and generally cheating Il Grimmo Reapero in recent times, this novel is a far more placid and meditative piece, and one which, in the final analysis, finds Zen fight his conscience to a grinding stalemate. Here’s hoping Dibdin achieved something similar before his far too early shuffle off this mortal coil. RIP, sir. Meanwhile, Gerard Donovan’s Julius Winsome, we’re more than pleased to report, lives up to all the hype, being a gripping first-person narrative of one of the most unusual and sympathetic murderers you’ll ever have the pleasure to meet. It’s difficult to avoid the Jim Thompson / Killer Inside of Me comparisons, so we won’t, but Donovan brings a tough poetry to his deranged hero, who goes – very quietly, but very deliberately – on the warpath when his beloved dog and only companion is cruelly shot to death in the remote woods of northern Maine. All in all, as fine a week’s reading as we can remember.

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