“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, April 15, 2016

Coming Soon: TREACHEROUS STRAND by Andrea Carter

Andrea Carter follows up her debut DEATH AT WHITEWATER CHURCH – which I thoroughly enjoyed – with TREACHEROUS STRAND (Constable), in which amateur sleuth solicitor Ben O’Keeffe returns. To wit:
A woman’s body washes up on a remote beach on the Inishowen peninsula. Partially-clothed, with a strange tattoo on her thigh, she is identified as Marguerite Etienne, a French woman who has been living in the area.
  Solicitor Benedicta ‘Ben’ O’Keeffe is consumed by guilt; Marguerite was her client, and for the second time in her life Ben has failed someone who needed her, with tragic consequences. So when local Sergeant Tom Molloy dismisses Marguerite’s death as the suicide of a disturbed and lonely woman, Ben cannot let it lie.
  Ben uncovers Marguerite’s strange past as a member of a French doomsday cult, which she escaped twenty years previously but not without leaving her baby daughter behind. Disturbed by what appears to be chilling local indifference to Marguerite’s death, Ben pieces together the last few weeks of the French woman’s life in Inishowen. What she discovers causes her to question the fragile nature of her own position in the area, and she finds herself crossing boundaries both personal and professional to unearth local secrets long buried.
  TREACHEROUS STRAND will be published on June 2nd. For more on Andrea Carter, clickety-click here

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

One to Watch: THE DEAD RINGER by Triona Walsh

Triona Walsh publishes her debut thriller THE DEAD RINGER (Liberties Press) in June, a novel laced with political corruption and blackmail. To wit:
A young sex worker, who bears a disturbing likeness to the Taoiseach’s daughter - Kate Cunningham - is found murdered in a Kildare wood. Could the Taoiseach have killed her? Kate investigates who she is and why she was killed. But can she solve the case before she too ends up on the mortuary slab?
  THE DEAD RINGER will be published on June 20th. For more on Triona Walsh, clickety-click here

Monday, April 11, 2016

Coming Soon: GIRL UNKNOWN by Karen Perry

Crime writing partnership Karen Gillece and Paul Perry have established a terrific reputation for psychological thrillers with their first two novels, THE BOY THAT NEVER WAS and ONLY WE KNOW. Their third novel is GIRL UNKNOWN:
When Zoe Barry walks into Professor David Connolly’s office and announces that she is his daughter, he is left reeling. Suddenly his family - imperfect, flawed, but working - is trying to find space for someone new.
  But Zoe’s stories don’t quite add up and lies become indistinguishable from truths. The family struggle to make sense of whether she is a sister, a daughter, a friend, an enemy. But no one could have expected where it all might end.
  Because they have let into their home a girl that they do not know. And now everything they have built has begun to violently, determinedly, break apart.
  GIRL UNKNOWN will be published on June 2nd.