“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

Monday, July 16, 2007

The Embiggened O # 1,012: We Got Mailed

Crumbs! Talk about choking on your cornflakes … There we were, quietly leafing through our Irish Mail on Sunday, when lo! we cameth upon ‘Our Guide To The Best Summer Page-Turners’. And lo-lo! our humble offering, The Big O, was among their Thrillers, to wit:
"A crime novel set in Dublin sidesteps expectations of gangland shootings and bumbling gardaĆ­ with characters who may have grown up on the smooth ideals of American mobster movies but are having a tricky time moving from fiction into reality. Taut dialogue and understated description lift Burke’s style above mere Elmore Leonard impersonation."
Lawks! Consider our gast well and truly flabbered, people. As for the other page-turning thriller-types, they were Alex Barclay’s The Caller, John Connolly’s The Unquiet, Matt Rees’ The Bethlehem Murders, Michael Connelly’s The Overlook, and Tana French’s In The Woods. Are we honoured and privileged to be even mentioned in such illustrious company? Ask us when we finally manage to get our gast unflabbered …

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