“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
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Funky Friday’s Free-For-All: Being A Cornucopia Of Interweb Stuff-‘N’-Such Humbly Offered For Your Delectation
Waiting For The Miracle To Come
“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 417: Arlene Hunt
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
The Choirboys, by Joseph Wambaugh. I’ve read that book many a time and I still love it (his latest, Hollywood Station, is shaping up to be a right old feast too). The Choirboys contains the single most brilliant line up of characters I’ve ever clapped my beady eyes on. A rag-bag shower of LA cops, like Roscoe Rules, and Waddayamean Dean … Jesus, I’m laughing even thinking about it. But then I get all teary-eyed at the poignancy of the story too. Damn you, Wambaugh!
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
James Herriot and all the vet books, they make me laugh out loud. In Barcelona I had to stop reading them on the metro because I would flail about in hysterics, making those Catalan doobies very nervous indeed.
Most satisfying writing moment?
When I’ve spent two days cursing, procrastinating, complaining and glowering at my computer screen about some plot problem or other, only for a cartoon light-bulb to go ‘ping’ over my head. I have been known to shout, “SHEWALLAH!” when that happens, frightening any number of useless animals.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
I don’t know, I don’t read a lot of Irish crime, except for John Connolly, so steeped in American noir that I am. However, I intend to rectify that. Ask me again in a few months.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Any of mine, hear that producer dudes! Try me, I'm not greedy. ANY OF MINE!
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The best thing is working for yourself, answering to yourself and being able to stay in jeans all day long if you want to - and I do. The worst is the fear, the fear that no one will like what you’ve just invested the best part of a year in. I don’t mean critics either, I mean readers. I don’t know what I’m going to drink the day I get an email from a reader saying, “I didn't like your last book nearly as much as the others.” Rum and Coke probably, the non-diet kind. Oh, I’ll go wild.
Why does John Banville use a pseudonym for writing crime?
Who can say? Maybe he thought folk would ridicule him for trying a different genre. I’m inclined to forgive Banville a lot of things because I liked The Untouchable so much. Indeed, I went about talking just so, and saying things in a clipped faux Eton accent for weeks. But then he came out with The Sea and that made my brow go all funny and furrowed, so this sort of thing really means he’s chapping my hide a bit. And then he does those terrible highbrow reviews where I have to sit with a dictionary in one hand and a stiff drink in the other. It's just not on, you know.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Speedy entertaining pap.
Arlene Hunt’s Missing Presumed Dead is out now
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Yep, It’s Still Millar Time
“I’ve just been informed that French publishing house Fayard has bought the French rights to The Darkness of Bones and The Redemption Factory. This comes on the heels of American publishing house Avalon Publishing Group purchasing the rights to The Redemption Factory. I have just acquired the rights to my best-selling memoir, On The Brinks (it’s a long story, but they are now back where they belong – with me! Funny how you slave over something for five years, only to be told it is no longer yours???), and I am very confident of seeing On The Brinks being purchased in America as well as by numerous publishers in Europe. Oh, and Brandon (my present publishers) will be marking their 25th year in publishing with a release of a collection of work by twenty-five of its crime writers, in Dublin in September, of which I am one. I’ll keep you informed of the exact date.”Erm, please do. Righty-o, we’re off for a lie-down with the shades pulled down …
This Week We’re Reading … End Games and Julius Winsome
One Of These Kids Is Doing His Eoin Thing
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Kilroy Iz ’Ere
Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Bishop’s Pawn by KT McCaffrey
This review was reproduced by the kind permission of Euro Crime
Flick Lit # 21: The Big Heat
Monday, June 18, 2007
Sleeping Dogs Lie: A Little Bit Of Bark, A Little Bit Of Bite
“There weren’t many black people in Ireland back then,” says Sylvester, “and someone asked me if I was related to a black man who had been a member of the IRA in County Tipperary. I’m not sure if the story was true but it gave me an idea for a novel.”So far, so good. Except the sequel, Sleeping Dogs Lie, in which fugitive from justice Robbie Walker and his ex-IRA friend Danny make their way to the States and get embroiled in a FBI plot, pushed all the wrong buttons in all the wrong places. Unable to get published in America, Young sent his m/s to Ireland. Cue chaos. According to the Sleeping Dogs Lie press release, the m/s was confiscated and his editor was arrested and questioned for three days.
“I was troubled by the news,” says Young, “but I can understand in the climate created since 9/11 how the references to the IRA, the FARC and a bomb plot on American soil within the manuscript would have aroused the police’s interest.”Very magnanimous, sir. Two years after being confiscated, Sleeping Dogs Lie is finally published in September by those stoic souls at Raldon. If freebie reads are your thing, jump over here for the first chapter.
“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 92: Pauline McLynn
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
ANY of the Dave Robicheaux series by James Lee Burke – the man is a genius. A Small Death In Lisbon by Robert Wilson is also a near perfect book.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Crime novels and thrillers.
Most satisfying writing moment?
I get that every time a book comes out ... after the HORROR of what’s gone before ... it ain’t getting’ any easier, my friends ...
The best Irish crime novel is …?
There is NO WAY I am nominating one – I know too many of the crime guys 'n’ gals and, worse, they know where I live AND how to kill people in surprisingly new and awful ways.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
This wouldn't really class as ‘Irish’ in as much as it’d be set in London but Ken Bruen’s Inspector Brant books would make great movies / TV. They are extremely violent, funny and the main man is such a total SHIT that you just can’t help but love him ...
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Worst thing – writing. Best thing – writing.
Why does John Banville use a pseudonym for writing crime?
I think the literary world just wouldn’t be able to handle that. I think he knows, though, that crime is the forum where you can have it all and fair play to him for realising that. The best crime books not only entertain on their own terms but also say something about the human condition, it seems to me.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Enjoyable, I hope.
Pauline McLynn’s latest novel, Bright Lights and Promises, is available now
Dusty Spring Fields
Sunday, June 17, 2007
The Monday Review: It’s Nice To Be Nice, Although It’d Be Nicer To Be In Nice
A Swords From The Stone
The Embiggened O # 235: Bring On The Dancing Trumpets
“Burke’s The Big O … moves out of classic pulp-noir territory into a kidnap caper with style and plotting more like Elmore Leonard (or maybe Donald Westlake) than Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler … The result is a kaleidoscopic narrative that moves forward at a rapid pace – and the result is also quite funny, in the way that Leonard’s novels are frequently funny: expectations are overturned, characters move inexorably toward an unforeseen climax, and we glide past unbelievable coincidences without hesitation … The Big O is, ultimately, a crime farce of the first order (that is to say, it stands up very well to the Leonard comparison …) … the plotting seems casual, unplanned, with the random pattern of life – but looking back, the story is as tightly structured as a jigsaw puzzle … I highly recommend The Big O, and wish for the sake of its potential readership that it soon finds wider distribution – in the U.S., for example …”Were we physiologically capable of having another blog’s baby, we’d be snuggling up under the duvet with International Noir right now. We loves ya, baby!