“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

Friday, June 1, 2007

Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peas

A few interviews with writerly types, people – Brian McGilloway bares his soul to the rather wonderful It’s A Crime! (Or A Mystery), revealing that it was a visit to Belfast’s emporium of darkness, No Alibis, way back when which first got him trudging down those mean streets, and that he read nothing but crime fiction from then on in. “I went in browsing one day," says Brian (right) "and came out with a compendium of the first three Colin Dexter novels and a copy of Ian Rankin’s Black and Blue. From then, I read all the Morse and Rebus novels before widening my reading further. Since then, crime fiction has been the main element of my reading. Until I started writing it ...” Meanwhile, He Who Must Be Called Bateman turned up on the Front Row on BBC Radio 4 during the week, to tell the world at large why he’s no longer allowed to call himself Colin, and why the covers of his books have been (unfairly, wethinks) remodelled along the lines of Christopher Brookmyre’s. Although he probably has a word or nineteen to spare for his latest offering, I Predict A Riot … Finally, it’s an oldie-but-goodie: Julie Parsons (left) on BBC’s Woman’s Hour, from last year, where she talks about the recently published The Hourglass and discusses the disappearance of her father at sea when she was a child, which she reckons was a huge influence on her developing an interest in psychological thrillers, and the culture shock involved in moving from her native New Zealand to Ireland as a young girl … and while we’re at it, here’s an interview Julie did with Shots Mag on the release of The Hourglass. No, don’t thank us – we’re only doing our job. Badly.

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