“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, August 3, 2011

Down These Clean Streets A Man Must Go …

The reviews for DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS continue to trickle in, said tome being a collection of essays, interviews and short fiction by Irish writers on the phenomenon that is Irish crime writing. The latest comes courtesy of Michael Malone over at Crime Squad, with the gist running thusly:
“It is by turns discursive, instructive and entertaining, and is never less than fascinating. This needs to be in every crime writing fan’s library.” - Crime Squad
  We thank you kindly, sir. For the full review, clickety-click here and scroll down
  Elsewhere, and continuing in a similar vein, I recently read the forthcoming DEAD SHARP, a collection of interviews compiled by Len Wanner with a number of Scottish crime writers, including Ian Rankin, Louise Welsh, Karen Campbell, Paul Johnston and Allan Guthrie. A very fine collection it is, too, although I’ll keep my powder dry for the moment, as I’ll be reviewing it in due course. For more, clickety-click here
  Also forthcoming, although not until January, is another intriguing prospect: DEATH IN A COLD CLIMATE, an investigation into Scandinavian crime writing by Barry Forshaw. Quoth the blurb elves:
DEATH IN A COLD CLIMATE is a celebration and analysis of Scandinavian crime fiction, one of the most successful literary genres. Barry Forshaw, the UK’s principal expert on crime fiction, discusses books, films and TV adaptations, from Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s influential Martin Beck series through Henning Mankell’s Wallander to Stieg Larsson’s demolition of the Swedish Social Democratic ideal in the publishing phenomenon THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. In intelligent but accessible fashion, the book examines the massive commercial appeal of the field along with Nordic cultural differences from Iceland to Norway. Including unique interview material with writers, publishers and translators, this is the perfect reader’s guide to the hottest strand of crime fiction today, here examined both as a literary form and as an index to the societies it reflects. Includes Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø, Håkan Nesser, Karin Fossum, Camilla Läckberg, Liza Marklund, Jussi Adler-Olsen, Matti Joensuu and many others.
  Personally, and while I quite like DEATH IN A COLD CLIMATE, I’d have thought a book about Scandinavian crime fiction should have been called DOWN THESE CLEAN STREETS. But that’s just me …

No comments: