“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

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Hot To Trot

The trope of the crime fiction protagonist battling his or her inner demons is a common one, as you all know, although John Connolly gave the convention an ingeniously literal twist by externalising said demons for poor, tormented Charlie Parker. More recently, for his young adult novels, Connolly has pitted the boy wonder Samuel Johnson against a host of demons, and even sent him down to harrow hell.
  Elsewhere, Ken Bruen cut straight to the chase with THE DEVIL (2011), in which poor, tormented Jack Taylor came face to face with Satan himself - or did he?
  Now Gerard Brennan publishes FIREPROOF (Blasted Heath). Quoth the blurb elves:
Hell hath no fury for Mike Rocks. He’s fireproof, an anomaly caused by a slip-up in afterlife bureaucracy. Lucifer bundles him off as an embarrassing problem with a mission to introduce Satanism to Northern Ireland. And while he’s at it, Mike can exact revenge on the men who took his life. FIREPROOF is equal parts crime fiction, dark urban fantasy and black comedy. For fans of Colin Bateman, Charlie Huston and Duane Swierczynski.
  So there you have it. “Scintillating, hilarious, surreal … a total blast,” declares the aforementioned Ken Bruen of FIREPROOF, and in truth it sounds a ripsnorter. Introducing Satanism to Northern Ireland? This could well be the (blackly) comic novel of the year.
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