“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 18, 2012

A Rush Of Blood

I’m not going to say too much about the recent review in the Irish Independent of BLOOD LOSS (HarperCollins) by Alex Barclay (right), except to wonder, rather plaintively, why I never seem to get reviews that begin like this:
“Alex Barclay has to be the best-looking thriller writer in Ireland . . . and possibly anywhere else for that matter. She also happens to be one of the best. She will be able to star in her own movies when they start turning her bestselling books into films.” - Irish Independent
  For the rest, clickety-click here
  By the way, and for the record, and in the interests of transparency and accountability, etc., I met with Alex Barclay last week to interview her, and she very much is, as they kids say, all that. Truth be told, she’s the kind of attractive that turns male and female heads when she walks into a room. It’s also true that she’s much more interested in being a good writer than she is in ‘all that’.
  Happily, BLOOD LOSS is a terrific thriller that blends the personal and the political in a very interesting way, and takes a well-deserved cut at Big Pharma in the process. It is, as the kids say, ‘all that’.
  Finally, if you have the time, Alex Barclay was interviewed on TV3’s Ireland AM last week. Clickety-click here for the visuals

No comments: