“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, December 9, 2007

The Rain From Spain Falls Mainly On James Monaghan’s Parade

Crumbs! John Spain, literary editor-type at the Irish Independent and contributor to the Irish Voice, wasn’t noticeably impressed with James Monaghan’s COLOMBIA JAIL JOURNAL. To wit:
“I WAS looking forward to the new book by the head honcho of the Colombia Three, James Monaghan, which was published last week here and which advance publicity had promised would reveal all about the exploits of the Three Amigos down Colombia way a few years back. On that score it was deeply disappointing, which probably only proves how gullible I am to expect anything else. In fact the book fails to provide any new or convincing answers to the two most interesting questions about the Three Amigos – what they were really doing in Colombia in the first place, and how they were smuggled back to Ireland after they absconded from the Colombian justice system.”
Apparently there isn’t even a rehash of the story about how the three chaps were amateur ornithologists checking out the fauna in Colombia’s demilitarised zone. Which totally scuppers our gag about how canaries, like good children, should be seen and not heard. Which is just as well, from a factual point of view, because canaries aren’t indigenous to South America. Or Ireland.

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