“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

Friday, September 21, 2012

The Butler Who Did It

New Island appears to be in the mood to publish interesting Irish crime fiction novels of late - Sean Moncrieff’s latest offering being a case in point - and THE JUDAS KISS by David Butler is another. Quoth the blurb elves:
When Bluebottle runs away from a religious institution to live on the streets of Dublin, he is taken in by Malcolm, an ageing sensualist with a penchant for younger boys. But lust soon turns into full-blown sexual obsession. There follows the first of a series of increasingly violent encounters which lead relentlessly to disfigurement and bloody murder. As the first of the six narrators warns: this murder is messy - a stone inside a stocking sticky with blood. Besides this brutal attack, there are beatings, betrayals, perverse and illicit desires, and even a disfigurement - the Judas Kiss of the title. Dark territory indeed. THE JUDAS KISS is dark and moody. But the tale is relieved throughout not only by a pervasive black humour, but by the emergence of love in all its various guises.
  That sounds like the good stuff, alright, and the fact that David Butler is a poet and short story writer who has previously lectured in Spanish literature and published AN AID TO READING ULYSSES suggests that THE JUDAS KISS will be a crime novel with a difference. There’s a copy en route to CAP Towers as you read, and as always, we’ll keep you posted …

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