“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, January 24, 2008

The Pith and the Pendleton

Ho-hum. The debate as to what is and isn’t crime fiction rumbles on, for the most part between elves who really should be too busy polishing the Grand Vizier’s opal-encrusted codpiece for such flibberty-gibbet hair-splitting. Anyhoo, Michael Collins (right) (LOST SOULS, THE RESURRECTIONISTS) is considered by many to be more of a literary writer than a genre one, despite the fact that his novels often employ crime fiction tropes. In the vid below, Collins gets to the pith of what constitutes ‘genre-blending’ in the context of THE SECRET LIFE OF E. ROBERT PENDLETON (aka THE DEATH OF A WRITER) …

The Big Question: Should we get out more?

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