“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, September 12, 2007

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Two-Way Split by Allan Guthrie

“The holdall sat on the bed like an ugly brown bag of conscience.” Fans of classic crime writing will get a kick or five out of Two-Way Split, and we’re talking classic: Allan Guthrie’s multi-character exploration of Edinburgh’s underbelly marries the spare, laconic prose of James M. Cain with the psychological grotesqueries of Jim Thompson at his most lurid. And yet this is by no means a period piece. Guthrie’s unhurried, deadpan style is timeless even as it evokes the changing face of modern Edinburgh, as seen through the eyes of the novel’s most sympathetic character, Pearce – although sympathetic is a relative term, given that Pearce has been recently released from prison after serving a ten-stretch for premeditated murder. The most delicious aspect of the tale is its refusal to indulge in the sturm und drang of hyperbolic gore, despite being couched in the narrative of a revenge fantasy. Instead, and while it fairly bristles with the frisson of potential violence at every turn, Guthrie cranks up the tension notch by notch by the simple expedient of having his characters grow ever more quietly desperate as the pages turn. The result is a gut-knotting finale that unfurls with the inevitability of all great tragedy and the best nasty sex – it’ll leave you devastated, hollowed out, aching to cry and craving more. – Declan Burke

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