“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

Monday, August 20, 2012

Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hound Dog

A trumpet-parp please, maestro. The launch isn’t until Wednesday, but SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is officially published today, August 20th, by the ever-lovely Liberties Press. What say the blurb elves?
‘I glanced up but he’d already jumped, a dark blur plummeting, wings folded against the drag like some starving hawk out of the noon sun, some angel betrayed. He punched through the cab’s roof so hard he sent metal shearing into the petrol tank. All it took was one spark. Boom …’

Harry Rigby is right there, an eye-witness when Finn Hamilton walks out into the big nothing nine stories up, but no one wants to believe Finn is just the latest statistic in Ireland’s silent epidemic. Not Finn’s mother, Saoirse Hamilton, whose property empire is crumbling around her; and not Finn’s pregnant fiancé, Maria, or his sister Grainne; and especially not Detective Tohill, the cop who believes Rigby is a stone-cold killer, a slaughter’s hound with a taste for blood …

Welcome to Harry Rigby’s Sligo, where death comes dropping slow.

Studded with shards of black humour and mordant wit, SLAUGHTER’S HOUND is a gripping noir from one of the most innovative voices in Irish crime fiction.

“Everything you could want - action, suspense, character and setting, all floating on the easy lyricism of a fine writer at the top of his game.” - Lee Child

“SLAUGHTER’S HOUND has everything you want from noir but what makes it special is the writing: taut, honed and vivid … a sheer pleasure.” - Tana French
  So there you have it. If you’re in the general vicinity of Dublin on Wednesday evening, please feel free to come along to the launch. It takes place at 6.30pm in Hodges Figgis, Dawson Street, Dublin 2, and I’d love to see you there.
  Meanwhile, for a snifter of Chapter One, clickety-click here

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