“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, March 27, 2009

Big Mcs: Super-Sized

All three regular readers of CAP will know that I think Adrian McKinty is a terrific writer, and that his latest, FIFTY GRAND, is probably his finest. Publishers Weekly is the latest to weigh in with a nice pre-pub review, with the gist running thusly:
“Irish crime writer McKinty delivers an intelligent novel of suspense about cultural identity … in trademark fashion, McKinty winds up his provocative tale with a violent and memorable final act.”
  The cover on the right, by the way, is the U.K. paperback. Tasty, no?
  Meanwhile, Ava McCarthy’s THE INSIDER continues to garner ye olde rave plaudits, with the latest coming courtesy of the Op-Ed pages of the Irish Times, no less. Quoth the Old Lady:
“This a storming debut thriller with a central character who is a clear-eyed, non-sentimental soul sister of Val McDermid’s Kate Brannigan or Sara Paretsky’s VI Warshawski. In Harry Martinez, the writer has a strong, attractive and super-smart central character who is ripe for another adventure.”
  McDermid and Paretsky? Very nice, ma’am. Very nice indeed …

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