“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, October 4, 2007

“Crucifixion? Second On The Left, One Cross Each.”

Nice to see the Donegal News praising Paul Charles for the authentic feel to the Donegal-set The Dust of Death, especially as the London-based scribe, the creator of Camden Town’s finest Christy Kennedy, originally hails from the neighbouring county of Derry. Mind you, Paul’s local knowledge is hardly surprising given that his wife is a Donegal woman and he’s been sniffing around Donegal as a location for a novel for some time now. Quoth Paul:
“I introduced Inspector Starrett when Christy Kennedy was solving a crime and returned to his native Portrush. I like to keep things factually accurate. I’d wouldn’t like my readers to be scoffing at something in the plot saying “Ah come on, that could never have happened,” so when it went cross-border he had to work in conjunction with Inspector Starrett. It made it much easier to write this first Donegal detective novel because he came to me already fully formed.”
Lovely stuff. Mind you, given that the novel opens with a crucifixion in the sleepy village of Ramelton, maybe we’d best lay off the ‘prophet recognised in his own country’ lines for now, eh?

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