“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
Thursday, July 5, 2007
The Temple Of Doom
Funky Friday’s Free-For-All: If Music Be The Food Of Love, Eat On
This Week We’re Reading … The Dead Yard and Half Moon Investigations
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
The Missing In Action
“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 2,003: Paul Carson
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Bangkok 8 by John Burdett.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Any of Colin Bateman’s books.
Most satisfying writing moment?
Having a crisis of confidence after labouring over a first chapter for three months, deciding writing just wasn’t my thing, walking away from PC and sitting down for long re-think. One hour later I came up with idea for prison doctor and Betrayal was born. It flowed like water.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Ambush, by me. It’s got all the right ingredients and is under evaluation as I write by a major TV/film production company (then again, Scalpel was optioned for about 10 years and never saw the light of day!).
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst: it’s bloody hard work and you do have to take the bad reviews on the chin. Best: seeing the books on the shelves and on the bestseller lists.
Why does John Banville use a pseudonym for writing crime?
Kindest evaluation: to distinguish his literary writing from his more commercially minded book. Lots of writers use this (Martin Waddell pens the most wonderful children’s picture books under his own name and has a separate name for his teenage-audience works). A spiteful and mean-spirited interpretation would be that Banville isn't really comfortable with crime fiction and doesn't want to be so obviously selling his soul. Personally I couldn't give a damn and I suspect he couldn’t give a damn either. Life’s too short to bother with such trivia.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Pacy, racy, spicy.
Paul Carson’s Betrayal is available in all good book shops
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
“Honestly, It Was Nice Just To Be Nom … What’s That? I Won? Take THAT, Peons!”
“I am still a bit green around the gills but much cheered by having won the Branford Boase Award 2007 for A Swift Pure Cry. It is an award to recognise a debut novel for children/young adults and the author receives £1,000 and the author and person who edited the book both receive a hand-crafted wooden box. It was wonderful! A Swift Pure Cry would need the most generous of interpretations to classify as a crime novel – although there is a crime in it ...”‘Generous Interpretations’ is our middle name, Siobhan. Actually, we’re thinking of suing our parents. Anyone have any advice?
A Brief And Largely Pointless Exercise In Reverse Snobbery
“For hard-boiled detective fiction, definitely see A Carra King, by John Brady. Brady’s hefty novel is the sixth in his series starring Matt Minogue, a detective with the Dublin police force. Brady’s determinedly authentic Dublin-speak takes some getting used to, as does his terse, laconic style, but the novel is definitely worth the effort. A Carra King is intelligent, sophisticated in its plotting and prose, intensely atmospheric and detailed, and packed with characters whose individuality and humanity are richly satisfying. If a novel is a work of fiction which brings a world to life, A Carra King definitely deserves to be considered a novel first and “detective fiction” second.”Okay, commence inquibbilating. Like, why a novel first and “detective fiction” second? Why “detective fiction” in those jazzy little inverted commas that suggest the pages were turned with a telescopic tweezers while a clothes-peg remained firmly clamped on the reader’s nose? Why the need to differentiate at all? Could it be that high-brow literature’s superiority complex masks, as it generally tends to do, an inferiority complex? Because as far as we can make out, there’s only one essential difference between well-written ‘literature’ and ‘crime fiction’. Crime fiction sells. High-brow doesn’t. Ask Benny Blanco.
Flick Lit # 131: The Long Goodbye
Monday, July 2, 2007
Brought To Book # 213: Seamus Smyth On Ken Bruen’s Cross
Watership Downer
“I used to love rabbits. Until I read Sam Millar’s latest book The Darkness Of Bones. Seeing little bunnies, and there are plenty of them around at this time of year, now conjures up my worst nightmares. Spring will never be the same again … Loosely based on the Kincora scandal that rocked Northern Ireland in the ’80s, Millar’s novel makes for uneasy reading … This is a deeply chilling tale. Hopefully this book won’t find its way into the travel section of your local bookshop, or Belfast tourism may become a thing of the past.”Sam? Leave the bunnies alone or we’ll send Woundwort around. You have been warned.
“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 412: Eoin Colfer
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Any of Ken Bruen’s would do nicely. If I had to chose one, I would take American Skin. Obviously I would be pretty chuffed to have done The Hound of the Baskervilles too. Or The Getaway.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Comic books – I try to justify myself to strangers on trains. Pathetic. I once went to a newsagent with a friend and he got Time, the Financial Times and the Trib. I got Captain America, Creepy and Batman. We never spoke of it again.
Most satisfying writing moment?
I think when I waited outside the general post office in Wexford for the author’s copies of my first book to arrive. Nothing beats holding the first book on your hand. This is the moment when a dream becomes reality and is all the better for it. Also, on a more Celtic Tiger note, the first movie deal with Miramax.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
Oh, God. Tough one. I loved Vincent Banville’s Canon Law. Also Brendan Landers’ Milo Devine. But at the moment Ken is king. The Guards is the start of an era.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Every Dead Thing by John Connolly - creepy.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Being your own boss, when sometimes you don’t like the boss. There is no one to complain to and the union is shit.
Why does John Banville use a pseudonym for writing crime?
I imagine to avoid being pigeonholed. Perhaps there isn’t much of an overlap between Banville and Black readers. Of course I am guessing, it probably all stems from a childhood incident on the Wexford coast.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
En-ter- tainment.
Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony is out now
Sunday, July 1, 2007
The Monday Review: Being A Series Of Hup-Ya Snippets Culled From The Interweb Yokeybus
The Monday Review II: What Fresh Skulduggery Is This?
The Embiggened O # 998: Bee, Where Is Thy Sting? Oh, There It Is …
Q: Until recent years, Ireland hadn’t produced many crime novelists. Now there seems to be a surge, led by Declan Burke [right], Ken Bruen and Adrian McKinty. What’s changed to allow that?Erm, exqueeze us? There’s a surge now? And we’re leading it? Is it dangerous? Will there be pints of Pimms? And how come we’re always, always the last to know? Grumble, rhubarb, etc.
A: Ireland’s (historic) genre fiction was fantasy. We were predominantly a rural society, while crime fiction is about urban life …