“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, May 23, 2009

The Right Kind Of BLOOD

Another week, another Irish crime fiction writer. Sunday World crime correspondent Niamh O’Connor’s best-selling non-fiction book THE BLACK WIDOW goes out in paperback next month, with an update on the story of ‘the life and crimes of Catherine Nevin’, but a little birdie cheep-a-cheep-cheeps to the effect that Niamh will be publishing her first crime fiction opus next year, when IF I NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN arrives courtesy of Transworld Ireland. No details as to plot et al just yet, but I’m hearing rumours of Lynda LaPlante-style shenanigans. I’ll keep you posted …
  As if that wasn’t enough, Niamh has another non-fiction true crime book arriving later this year, when BLOOD TIES hits the streets.
  I was on a panel with Niamh a couple of months ago, alongside the über-glam* Alex Barclay, so I got in touch with Niamh earlier in the week, to see if I couldn’t pick her brains about a character I’m working on in a new story. She was incredibly helpful. “Anything you want to know,” she said, “just ask.” So I said, “Okay, my character is radiantly gorgeous. How does a girl manage to pull that off and be brilliant at the same time?”
  It was all downhill from there, really …

* (that umlaut’s for you, Ms Witch)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

OK, OK. I'll just have to fancy both of you, then.