“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, July 2, 2007

Brought To Book # 213: Seamus Smyth On Ken Bruen’s Cross

Like all gifted writers, Ken Bruen is big on atmosphere. He wallops you with it on page one – not with a character wearing a cross, but with a cross wearing him – and never lets up. And try this for characterisation: “I didn’t enquire how the barman knew my order. I was afraid he’d tell me … You sit behind a pint like that, a pure gift, with the Jameson already weaving its dark magic on your eyes, you can believe that Iraq is indeed on the other side of the world, that winter isn’t coming, that the Galway light will always hold that beautiful fascination and that priests are our protectors, not predators. You won’t have the illusion for very long, but the moment is priceless.” Bruen stalks Galway with the eye of a jackal, scouring the city’s ever-changing cultural and social scene and rancid underbelly, and weaves it into a thought-provoking sleuth yarn which is an indictment on modern-day Ireland. And he’s very visual. You see everything. The ‘half-crouch young people adopt’, the tree in the centre of McSwiggan’s pub reassuring us that the ‘country still has a sense of the absurd’. Bruen adds to the genre a voice that’s as challenging and unsettling as it is original. No genre-writing for this guy. He writes as if he’s sitting over a beer talking to a mate. It’s as subtle a piece of crime-writing as you’re likely to get. Nothing’s forced. It’s a masterclass in pace. Many writers are compared to writers who spawned their own sub-genre. Not Bruen. He’s spawning his own for others to aspire to. How many of us can claim that?- Seamus Smyth, author of Quinn

3 comments:

Josephine Damian said...

Declan and Seamus, you sold me on "Cross." I'll be picking up a copy today.

Nobody writes likes the Irish!

Anonymous said...

Josephine - Glad to be of service, ma'am, hope you enjoy Cross. The rest of Ken's stuff is equally as good, by the way ...

Anonymous said...

Too much Too soon

I really love reading Ken Bruen but I have to say Cross was a major disappointment. The plot was derivative, the action forced and the writing just plain tired. Maybe Ken is just writing too many books - my friend says that the new Brandt tome Ammunition is also so-so.