“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

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

It’s A Long Way Back To Tipperary

Shades of Eoin McNamee in Carlo Gébler’s latest offering, THE DEAD EIGHT, which is a novel based on a historical true crime. Quoth the blurb elves:
On a wet November morning in 1940, Harry Gleeson discovered the body of Moll McCarthy in a field near the village of New Inn, Co. Tipperary. Moll McCarthy had been shot twice with a shotgun, once in the face - Carlo Gébler’s novel is an attempt to explain how the local police fabricated their case and fitted up Harry Gleeson, and why an entire community looked away as the Irish judicial system prosecuted, convicted and condemned to death an innocent man. Albert Pierrepoint (the hangman) executed Harry Gleeson in Mountjoy in April 1941.
  THE DEAD EIGHT isn’t the first time that Gébler has dipped his quill into old blood: W9 & OTHER LIVES, THE CURE and HOW TO MURDER A MAN have all dabbled in crime narratives, although Gébler - who also writes memoir, children’s stories and non-genre fiction, as well as being a playwright - is critically acclaimed as a literary author.
  Anyway, THE DEAD EIGHT is winging its way towards me as you read this, so we’ll soon see whether it qualifies as a crime novel. Or not, as the case may be. Not that it matters: a good book is a good book, end of story.
  For those of you interested, and leaving aside the author’s intent and execution, my theory as to what constitutes a crime novel runs as follows: if you can take the crime out of the story and it still stands up, it’s probably not a crime novel; but if you take the crime away and the story collapses, then it’s a crime novel.
  If anyone has any other suggestions, the comment box is open …
  Incidentally, is it just me or is there a striking similarity between the cover of THE DEAD EIGHT and Gene Kerrigan’s non-fiction collection from 1996, HARD CASES?

2 comments:

eimear said...

It seems to be a fairly common trope in crime covers - see BLOOD MEN for another example. Or your own Big O for a single barrel version.

Declan Burke said...

Hi Eimear - a trope is one thing, but it appears that the images used are one and the same ...

As for the US version of Big O, that was actually the very same image as had previously been used for an edition of Elmore Leonard's Killshot, of which I was very proud, and still am.

http://crimealwayspays.blogspot.com/2008/09/embiggened-o-12309-in-which-harper-tugs.html

Cheers, Dec