“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

Saturday, November 3, 2007

An Unfair Cop, Guv

Brian Lindemuth was kind enough to drop us a line and let us know that Fantasy Book Spot is expanding its reach by moving into the realms of mystery and crime fiction. And where better place to start than with the publication of an excerpt from Sir Kenneth of Bruen’s (right) sparkling new – and tantalisingly as yet unpublished – standalone, ONCE WERE COPS, which comes courtesy of Fantasy Book Spot’s third issue of their Heliotrope e-zine. The opening salvo runneth thusly:
ONCE WERE COPS, by Ken Bruen
Kurt Browski, built like a shit brickhouse and just as solid. A cop out of Manhattan South, he was having a bad day.
Much like most days.
His heritage was East European but contained so many strands, not even his parents knew for sure it’s exact basis.
And cared less.
They wanted the American Dream.
Cash … and cash … and yeah, more of same.
They didn’t get it.
Made them mean.
Very.
His mother was a cleaner and his father had been a construction worker but had settled into a life of booze, sure beat getting up at 5.00 in the morning.
His father beat his mother and they both beat Kurt.
Somehow, he, if not survived them, got past them and finished High School, joined the Cops.
He wanted to be where you gave payback.
That was how he saw the force, emphasis on force. He was certainly East European in his view of the boys in blue, they had the juice to lean on … who-ever-the-fuck they wished.
And he did.
Hard.
His early weapon of choice was a K-bar.
Short, heavy and lethal and you could swing it real easy, plus, they rarely saw it coming.
They were watching your holstered gun and wallop, he slid the bar out of his sleeve and that’s all she wrote.
His rep was built on it and over the years, he became known as Kebar.
Did he care?
Not so’s you’d notice. He didn’t do friends, so what the fuck did he care …
For the rest, jump on over to the latest Heliotrope. But keep a weather eye out for that K-bar, eh?

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