“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, May 11, 2012

In Like Quinn

Another week, another debut title by an Irish crime writer. This week it’s Anthony Quinn, whose DISAPPEARED is published by Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Press / Open Road Media in July. Quoth the blurb elves:
DISAPPEARED is a poignant and haunting tale of Northern Ireland’s history. Perceiving two mysterious incidents as a sign of something much larger, Inspector Celcius Daly knows an old hatred is resurfacing, and a bloodbath broods ahead. Until now, Emerald Isle experienced its first taste of peace, and it is up to a Catholic detective (in a Protestant land) to restore that peace and solve a murder, digging deep into the garish history of a land stained red with blood.
  ‘Garish history of a land stained red with blood.’ Doesn’t sound very promising, does it? Then again, those blurb elves can’t always be trusted. I read the first few pages of DISAPPEARED on pdf, and they read nowhere as luridly or clunkily as the synopsis above might suggest; in fact, it was all very deftly put together. There’s an ARC on its way to CAP Towers as you read, so I’ll keep you posted …

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