“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, May 20, 2013

Memories Are Made Of This

It isn’t due until August, but I’m already looking forward to the latest offering from Conor Fitzgerald, whose police procedurals are set in Rome and feature Commissioner Alec Blume. Blume is an American-born naturalised Italian policeman, which gives him an outsider’s eye and an insider’s cynicism, and Fitzgerald’s tersely lyrical style is deliciously readable.
  The forthcoming tome, THE MEMORY KEY (Bloomsbury Publishing), will be Blume’s fourth outing, and the blurb elves have been busy:
On a freezing November night Commissioner Alec Blume is called to the scene of a shooting.
  The victim is Sofia Fontana, the sole witness to a previous killing. Blume’s enquiries lead from a professor with a passion for the art of memory to a hospitalised ex-terrorist whose injuries have left her mind innocently blank; from present day Rome’s criminal underclass, to a murderous train station bombing in central Italy several decades ago.
  Against the advice of his bosses and his own better judgement, Blume is drawn ever deeper into the case, which looks set to derail his troubled relationship with Caterina ...
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