“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

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Out Of The Past

Brendan John Sweeney launches his debut novel, ONCE IN ANOTHER WORLD (New Island), at Hodges Figgis in Dublin at 6.30pm on Monday, June 10th. Quoth the blurb elves:
Dublin, March 1937. Holland, an idealistic young IRA recruit, is offered a strange assignment. He is told to guard and spy on a sinister Hungarian businessman and Sabine his secretary – a Jewish refugee.
  The mission tests Holland’s loyalties and his idealism to the utmost and ends with a sordid shooting match in a field in England. Holland finds himself fleeing with Sabine into the depths of the Irish countryside, where treacherous swamps and dense woods protect them from their pursuers. An intense love affair between two young people from vastly different worlds suddenly becomes possible.
  But Holland’s closest friend in the Movement knows his mind too well, and seeks him out, leading to a confrontation as fateful and tragic as any Irish myth.
  I’ve been struck lately by the number of Irish writers who are writing historical crime fiction. Apart from Brendan John Sweeney, we’ve had in the last year or so Michael Russell (THE CITY OF SHADOWS), Kevin McCarthy (IRREGULARS), Benjamin Black (HOLY ORDERS), William Ryan (THE TWELFTH DEPARTMENT), Joe Joyce (ECHOLAND), Adrian McKinty (I HEAR THE SIRENS IN THE STREET), Patrick McGinley (COLD SPRING), Conor Brady (A JUNE OF ORDINARY MURDERS) and Stuart Neville (RATLINES) – and of course, the doyenne of them all, Cora Harrison (LAWS IN CONFLICT).
  I’m not sure what that means, or if it needs to mean anything, but there may well be a PhD in it for anyone who can figure out (or invent a plausible enough reason) as to why so many Irish crime novelists are delving into the past for inspiration.

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