“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

Monday, July 21, 2008

Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Ken Bruen on PAYING FOR IT

Galway’s adopted son and sometime sex-god Tony Black (right) drops us a line to give us a sneaky and ultra-exclusive peek at the Emperor of Galway Ken Bruen’s full review of PAYING FOR IT, the entirety of which runneth thusly:
PAYING FOR IT might just be the most aptly titled novel of the year.
  Rarely has a title worked on so many levels.
  Gus lives in an Edinburgh far from any tourist brochure of this genteel city.
  Nothing gentle here.
  Gus is fucked, in every way which hurts, bumped from his job as a reporter, losing his beloved wife to divorce and a more-than-lethal obsession with a whisky bottle.
  He agrees to investigate the death of the son of his surrogate father-figure, his own father and Gus being embroiled in a very love / hate battle.
  And phew, does he ever buy into trouble – his previous blunders, smacking politicians in the mouth, are about to pale when he begins to dig into this case.
  East European gangsters will be breathing down his neck in a very forceful way.
  And nothing is quite as it seems.
  The last fifty pages contain shock on shock.
  The writing is a joy, in your face, with that wondrous dead-pan humour that only the Celts really grasp.
  The narrative blasts off the page like a triple malt.
  We can only pray that Gus is already preparing his next outing.
  This is one adrenalin-pumped novel that is as moving and compassionate as it is stylishly written. – Ken Bruen
Nice. Meanwhile, it’s still not too late to enter our freebie giveaway competition this week (see below), featuring – yep, you guessed it – Tony Black’s PAYING FOR IT, in which, ironically enough, you get the book … without paying for it!!! Oh, how we laughed. And then we stopped.

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