Declan Burke has published a number of novels, the most recent being ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which won the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award 2012 and was shortlisted in the crime fiction category at the Irish Book Awards 2011. As a journalist and critic, he writes and broadcasts on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE, the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Independent. The unfortunate affliction of speaking of himself in the third person will soon pass. All views expressed here are very likely to be contrary.
For a quick biography, click here.
For regular updates on Irish crime writing, click here.


Sunday, January 4, 2009

The Embiggened O # 4,067: Whatever Happened To Hot-Shot Hamish?

It’s self-aggrandizing Sunday, folks, and there’s a rather nice review of our humble tome THE BIG O over at Crime Scene Scotland. Be warned, however – this one is compromised to hell and back, in a handbasket, as Donna Moore would have it, given that I met the very personable author and CSS supremo Russel McLean at the Baltimore Bouchercon, and I’m hoping to feature him in the Q&A section of CAP in the very near future, and that the reviewer, Tony Black, featured heavily on these very pages last year, on the occasion of the arrival of his debut novel, PAYING FOR IT.
  With that in mind, read on, or don’t. The gist of the review runneth thusly:
“THE BIG O is one big-old crazy caper with an eerie hint of Elmore Leonard and a brash, bold, ball-bustin’ tempo … As a stylist, Burke is as kick-ass Irish as the great Ken Bruen … The really big appeal of THE BIG O, however, is that there is simply nothing like it – nothing close – on the bookshelves today.” – Crime Scene Scotland
  For more in a similar vein, clickety-click here

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