“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, December 19, 2011

Bateman: Give Him An Inch, Etc.

The latest ‘Crime Beat’ column appeared in the Irish Times on Saturday, offering short reviews of the latest offerings from Michael Connelly, Aly Monroe, Susan Hill, Roslund & Hellstrom, George Pelecanos and The Artist Formerly Known as Colin Bateman. I’ll quote you the Bateman, if I may:
Another former journalist, Colin Bateman, resurrects the mouthy newspaperman Dan Starkey for his first outing in six years in NINE INCHES (Headline, £19.99). No longer a reporter, Starkey has set up as a private detective, in which capacity he is commissioned by a shock-jock radio host, Jack Caramac, to discover who kidnapped his young son. A slew of nefarious characters hove into sight as Starkey’s investigation moves from the well-heeled suburbs to working-class loyalist enclaves, in the process proffering a rather jaundiced view of the officially peaceful Northern Ireland landscape. Oddly, the ex-paramilitaries Starkey encounters are far more terrifying than those he outwitted when Bateman was writing during the Troubles, perhaps because, back then, there was always the hope the psychopathic parasites might melt back into the shadows when the new dispensation dawned. Dotted with Starkey’s blackly comic observations, NINE INCHES is an unsettling, breathless and very funny novel.
  For the rest, clickety-click here

No comments: