“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, September 2, 2017

News: Adrian McKinty Wins Second Ned Kelly Award

Hearty congrats to Adrian McKinty (right), late of Carrickfergus but now living in Melbourne, Australia, who yesterday won his second Ned Kelly award, for POLICE AT THE STATION AND THEY DON’T LOOK FRIENDLY, which will no doubt look nice on the mantelpiece beside the Edgar he won earlier this year. Quoth The Australian:
As crime fiction twists go, this is up there with Arthur Conan Doyle: Belfast-born, Melbourne-based Adrian McKinty last night won a book prize for a novel starring a character he wanted to kill ages ago.
  For the rest of The Australian piece, clickety-click here.
  Herewith be yours truly’s review of POLICE AT THE STATION, which was first published in the Irish Times:
Police at the Station and They Don’t Look Friendly (Serpent’s Tail, €15.99) is the sixth in Adrian McKinty’s increasingly impressive series to feature Sean Duffy, a Catholic detective working for the RUC during Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’. The mystery begins with a bizarre murder, when drug dealer Francis Deauville is shot to death with a crossbow, but when Duffy starts to wonder why an ‘independent’ drug dealer who has been paying protection to the paramilitaries has been assassinated in such an exotic fashion, he finds himself assailed on all sides. Persecuted by Internal Affairs and fending off IRA attacks, Duffy digs deep into Northern Ireland’s recent past to uncover a tale of collusion and unsolved murder. The plot is as tortuously twisting as McKinty’s readers have come to expect but it’s the tone that proves the novel’s most enjoyable aspect, as Duffy delivers a first-person tale of cheerfully grim fatalism and Proddy-Taig banter, the story chock-a-block with cultural references, from NWA and Kylie Minogue to Miami Vice and The Myth of Sisyphus.

Friday, September 1, 2017

Bio

Born in Sligo, Ireland.

I have published seven novels to date:

The Lammisters (2019)
The Lost and the Blind (2014)
Crime Always Pays (2014)
Slaughter’s Hound (2012)
Absolute Zero Cool (2011)
The Big O (2007)
Eightball Boogie (2003)

I am the editor of three titles:

Trouble is Our Business (2016)
Books to Die For (with John Connolly) (2012)
Down These Green Streets (2011)

Absolute Zero Cool won the Goldsboro Award for Best Comic Crime Fiction in 2012. Books to Die For won the Anthony, Macavity and Agatha awards in 2013.

Eightball Boogie, Absolute Zero Cool and Slaughter’s Hound were all shortlisted in the crime fiction category at the Irish Book Awards.

As a journalist and critic, I write and broadcast on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE and the Irish Examiner.

Contact: dbrodb[@]gmail.com

Event: NOIRELAND Crime Fiction Festival, October 27th to 29th

The inaugural NOIRELAND International Crime Fiction Festival will take place in Belfast from October 27th to 29th, featuring – and here, as always, we defer to the blurb elves – “the best in local talent, guest appearances by international crime-writing stars, and in-depth conversations with some of the greatest screenwriters to put crime dramas on the screen.
  “NOIRELAND is the brainchild of David Torrans who established the No Alibis Book Store twenty years ago and has been at the forefront promoting Irish crime fiction and bringing the greatest international crime writers to Belfast.”
  The three-day event will feature Irish writers Stuart Neville, Liz Nugent, Brian McGilloway, Adrian McKinty, Benjamin Black, Jo Spain, Claire McGowan, Anthony Quinn, Andrea Carter, Steve Cavanagh and Eoin McNamee, while Sophie Hannah, Arne Dahl, Robert Crais, Martin Edwards, Ruth Ware, Louise Welsh, Graeme McCrae Burnet, Abir Mukherjee, Ali Land and Steve Mosby are some of the international authors taking part.
  For all the details, including how to book tickets, clickety-click here

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Publication: RAVENHILL by John Steele

Described by Colin Bateman as ‘A cracking, fast-paced thriller,’ John Steele publishes the first in a Belfast-set series, RAVENHILL (Silvertail Books). Quoth the blurb elves:
Belfast, 1993: Jackie Shaw is a young tearaway running with paramilitaries in Belfast. He treads a fine line keeping psychotic hard-man Rab Simpson in check while sleeping with gang leader Billy Tyrie’s beautiful wife on the side.
  When a bomb claims nine lives, he is given the role of getaway driver in a planned reprisal killing, a key role in a major operation. But Jackie may not be who he seems ...
  Twenty years later, Jackie returns to the city for his father’s funeral after disappearing in mysterious circumstances. He wants to mourn then leave, but when figures from his past emerge, he is left with no choice but to revisit his violent former life.
  RAVENHILL will be published on August 31st.