“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, November 20, 2015

First Look: DEAD SECRET by Ava McCarthy

Ava McCarthy is best known for her series of thrillers featuring Harry Martinez, but her latest, the forthcoming DEAD SECRET (Harper), is a standalone. To wit:
From the author of the Harry Martinez thrillers comes a gripping psychological suspense novel.
  Two quick shots. One for him. One for you.
  After the death of her three-year-old daughter, Jodie has nothing left to live for – or almost nothing.
  She has one task to fulfil before she takes her own life. And that’s to kill the man she holds responsible for her daughter’s death – her seemingly perfect husband, Ethan.
  But Ethan is hiding more than just his true nature. And as more horrifying secrets from his past emerge, Jodie’s strength will be pushed to the limit …
  DEAD SECRET will be published on January 14th. For more, clickety-click here

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Review: DID YOU EVER HAVE A FAMILY by Bill Clegg

Longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize and National Book Awards, Bill Clegg’s Did You Ever Have A Family (Jonathan Cape) is a moving meditation on grief and mourning. Set in the small town of Wells, Connecticut, a town in economic decline which serves as a weekend and holiday destination for New Yorkers, the story opens with 16-year-old Silas waking to the sound of sirens, and discovering that smoke is rising into the sky from a house not far from his own home.
  Clegg employs a number of characters to tell his story, and the perspective quickly switches to that of June, a native New Yorker who has just decided to leave Wells. It is now some weeks after the fire observed by Silas; we learn that the fire was the result of a gas leak in June’s house, where the wedding of her daughter Lolly and Lolly’s fiancĂ© Will was due to take place. June is the only survivor of the blaze, which also killed her boyfriend, Luke. Numbed by the horror of her loss, June leaves Wells forever, not particularly caring where she drives.
  The perspective switches again, as Clegg continues to assemble the pieces of his mosaic-style narrative. We meet Lydia, Luke’s mother; Kelly, who runs the Moonstone Motel in Washington State, where June eventually fetches up; Cissy, the cleaner at the Moonstone who takes June under her wing; Dale, the father of Will; and Silas, who has guilty secrets he is desperate to confess.
  It’s a slow-burning tale initially, as the reader waits for the various pieces of the mosaic to fit and a pattern to emerge, but the patient reader will be richly rewarded. Clegg’s style allows for a number of ways of looking at the same central issue – the mystery of what caused the tragic fire – and also allows the story to move back and forth in time, so that at times we are observing people in the days, years and sometimes decades prior to the tragedy, while at other times we are exploring the consequences of the fire and the deaths, and learning how people are living with their loss and grief.
  It’s not quite as straightforward as Clegg simply slotting various pieces of story ‘jigsaw’ into place, however. As the story continues, the perspectives and personal stories begin to overlap in places, as accounts reinforce and sometimes contradict and occlude one another, which adds more dimensions to the individual stories and gives a greater depth and poignancy to the tale as a whole.
  In a quietly ambitious novel, Clegg weaves fascinating themes of impermanence (motels provide a recurring motif) and fractured families into his story, although the novel is at its most powerful when Clegg address the central issue of grief and death, and particularly in terms of that most devastating of losses, when a parent loses a child (June, Lydia and Dale have all lost children to the fire). “We’ve learned that grief can sometimes get loud,” observes Dale at one point of his changing relationship with his wife, “and when it does, we try not to speak over it.”
  It’s a haunting, affecting story of tragedy in a minor key, a restrained and dignified excavation of the deepest emotions that never veers into the realms of the sentimental. The final perspective in the novel is provided by Cissy, when she realises that June and Lydia have found a kind of solace in one another. “Rough as life can be,” Cissy says, “I know in my bones we are supposed to stick around and play our part … Someone down the line might need to know you got through it.”

This review was first published in the Irish Examiner

Monday, November 16, 2015

Publication: THE SILENT DEAD by Claire McGowan

Claire McGowan publishes THE SILENT DEAD (Headline), the third in her series of novels featuring forensic psychologist Paula Maguire, on November 19th. To wit:
Victim: Male.
Mid-thirties. 5’7”.
Cause of death: Hanging. Initial impression - murder.
ID: Mickey Doyle. Suspected terrorist and member of the Mayday Five.

The officers at the crime scene know exactly who the victim is. Doyle was one of five suspected bombers who caused the deaths of sixteen people. The remaining four are also missing and when a second body is found, decapitated, it’s clear they are being killed by the same methods their victims suffered. Forensic psychologist Paula Maguire is assigned the case but she is up against the clock - both personally and professionally. With moral boundaries blurred between victim and perpetrator, will be Paula be able to find those responsible? After all, even killers deserve justice, don’t they?
  Not one to rest on her laurels, Claire McGowan will publish the fourth Paula Maguire novel, A SAVAGE HUNGER, in March 2016.