“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

Monday, April 9, 2012

It’s Always Dawnest Before The Dark

The always eagled-eyed Rob Kitchin brings our attention the fact that there’s a new kid on the Belfast block - for lo! DARK DAWN is the debut title from Matt McGuire. Quoth the blurb elves:
Belfast. January 2005. Acting Detective Sergeant John O’Neill stands over the body of a dead teenager. The corpse was discovered on the building site of a luxury development overlooking the River Lagan. Kneecapped then killed, the body bears the hallmarks of a punishment beating. But this is the new Northern Ireland - the Celtic Tiger purrs, the Troubles are over, the paramilitaries are gone. So who is the boy? Why was he killed? O’Neill quickly realises that no one - his colleagues, the politicians, the press - cares who the kid is, making this case one of the toughest yet. And he needs to crack this one, his first job as Principle Investigator, or he risks ending up back in uniform. Disliked by the Chief Inspector and with his current rank yet to be ratified, O’Neill is in a precarious position. With acute insight, Matt McGuire’s cracking debut exposes the hidden underbelly of the new Northern Ireland, a world of drug dealing, financial corruption and vigilante justice.
  Sounds like a good one, especially if the good folks over at Euro Crime are to be believed.
  So who is this Matt McGuire guy? Well, some diligent research - yep, a quick Google search - reveals the following:
Dr Matt McGuire was born in Belfast and gained his MA, MSc and PhD in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh. Before coming to the University of Western Sydney he was a Lecturer at the University of Glasgow. He has published widely on various aspects of Irish and Scottish Literature, contemporary fiction and crime writing. His debut novel, DARK DAWN, was published by Constable Robinson and is coming out in April 2012.
  So there you have it. Yet more academic professor-types writing Irish crime fiction. Which is, surely, the literary equivalent of the second horse of the apocalypse. Or is it just that Irish dons are no more capable of resisting a nice, juicy murder than their Oxford counterparts? Answers on (used) fifty euro notes to the usual address, please …

1 comment:

Maxine Clarke said...

I went to Amazon intending to buy this book on the basis of the Euro Crime review, but it is £8.50 for a paperback! So I'll wait.