“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

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Lost Classics # 239: Death Is A Lonely Business, Ray Bradbury

Better known for his sci-fi, Ray Bradbury penned crime fiction's equivalent of Moby Dick as he stalked the great white page in an achingly atmospheric homage to Chandler, Hammett, Cain and Ross Macdonald set in the early 1950s in a foggy, seedy Venice (CA), a once glamorous resort that's now 'the last stop on the circus train for scores of old silent-movie stars and young writers trying to keep their art and their bodies alive'. Equal parts paean to lost youth and classic crime, it deserves a new readership every generation. Start here with the first chapter: "Venice, California, in the old days, had much to recommend it to people who liked to be sad. It had fog almost every night and along the shore the moaning of the oil well machinery and the slap of dark water in the canals and the hiss of sand against the windows of your house when the wind came up and sang among the open places and along the empty walks ..."

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