“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

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

“Another French Fancy, Vicar?”

The build-up to the eagerly awaited publication to Tana French’s sequel to IN THE WOODS, THE LIKENESS, continues apace, with Publishers Weekly conducting a small but perfectly formed interview with Tana, a sample of which runneth thusly:
Q: THE LIKENESS has elements of a locked room mystery, with all the characters, including the potential killer, living under the same roof. Was this a challenge?
A: “Absolutely. I love the conventions of the mystery genre, the fact that you start out with such tight parameters: somebody gets killed and somebody finds out whodunit. I like twisting and breaking these parameters. One of my twists is that the main characters like being in their “locked room,” they like being in their own world. So the question becomes, is the danger from outside or from inside?”
Erm, we give up. But is it possible that the danger is neither outside nor inside, but – gasp! – somewhere in between? That’s right, folks – it’s a new sub-sub-sub-genre, the Killer Door Mystery! Did we mention we’re giving these ideas away for free?

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