“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

Sunday, April 12, 2009

The Sunday Review

It’s Sunday, they’re reviews, to wit: Stuart Neville’s THE TWELVE isn’t due until July, but Library Thing is already impressed: “The book is a savage, tender tale of the futility and fragility of the search for peace in Northern Ireland … Neville is uncompromising about violence and the truly terrible situations that his duplicitous characters and innocents alike find themselves in, but the tale itself storms along like a runaway train and all the reader can do is watch with bated breath as it hurtles towards a brilliant finale. I found the ending surprisingly unpredictable and utterly satisfying. The story is poignantly relevant, and the premise absolutely original and something which raises this novel well beyond a run-of-the-mill thriller.” Nice one … Derek Landy’s new Skulduggery Pleasant gets the big up at The Times: “Derek Landy’s latest Skulduggery Pleasant caper, THE FACELESS ONES, has the detective and his sidekick, Valkyrie, on the track of a killer and the ‘Faceless Ones’. Hard-boiled detective wisecracks mixed with magic will not suit every 9+, but it’s fast and funny.” Over at Euro Crime, Michelle Peckham likes Declan Hughes’s ALL THE DEAD VOICES: “This is a tense, well-written thriller … It weaves together the different threads of the story expertly, and every word counts. So, read and enjoy, but pay attention or you might miss something!” You have been warned … Staying with Euro Crime, Paul Blackburn was impressed by Geraldine McMenamin’s THE SAME CLOTH: “The story moves along at a fast pace until the surprising conclusion. This is the first book by Geraldine McMenamin and I will certainly be looking forward to her next.” Over at the Irish Times, Kevin Power reviews Gene Kerrigan’s DARK TIMES IN THE CITY in the ‘Book of the Day’ slot: “This is a novel that uses a beautifully spun crime narrative to say something interesting about Ireland in the here and now … DARK TIMES IN THE CITY is a serious book, but it wears its seriousness lightly, and never forgets that it’s a thriller. It is – to coin a phrase – seriously entertaining.” Finally, it was a pretty good week for Brian McGilloway. First Cathi Unsworth larged up GALLOWS LANE in The Guardian: “McGilloway, with his lovingly rendered landscapes and all-too-fallible detective, continues to investigate invisible demarcations of power, ancient lines of conflict and the shadowlands of the human psyche.” Crikey! But there’s more! The Waterstone’s Crime Squad are on the case with BLEED A RIVER DEEP: “Inspector Devlin is a fascinating addition to the ranks of crime fiction’s favourite detectives and is surely here to stay … All you fans of the police procedural should make sure that this writer’s latest book is number one on your shopping list for BLEED A RIVER DEEP has barely a word out of place, carries the faint tickle of sly wit and is as satisfying as a long, slow sip of Jameson’s on ice.” Corks! What say you, Sue Magee at The Book Bag? “The book is well-written with enough twists in the plot to keep a corkscrew happy … It’s been suggested that this series could be up there with Rebus, Resnick et al. That’s a little generous at the moment (or too high an expectation, depending on your viewpoint) but the book compares well with early- to mid-period work by Rankin and Harvey. You’ll not be wasting your time reading the book and this could well be a series to watch in the future.” So there you have it. Brian McGilloway: a fine writer, stud muffin, and all-round top bloke. Make you sick, wouldn’t it?

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