“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, September 24, 2007

The Embiggened O: Karma-Karma-Karma Chameleon

Following on from last week’s karma-tastic Embiggened O post, in which we outlined our reasons for persecuting award-winning writers to big-up our humble offering THE BIG O, Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year winner Allan Guthrie has been gracious enough to offer his opinion, to wit:
“It’s hard to praise THE BIG O highly enough. Excellent writing, great characters, superb storytelling – all played out at a ferocious tempo. By turns it’s dark, funny, moving, brutal, tender and twisted. A book that makes one hell of an impact. More Declan Burke please.”
Which is lovelier than a trumpet break from Forever Changes-era Love. A caveat, however: the sharper-eyed observers among you might have noticed that the Crime Always Pays reviewing elves have recently swooned about Guthrie’s TWO-WAY SPLIT, so much so that Guthrie was moved to plug the review on his interweb page thingy. So – is the above plug a simple case of mutual appreciation from a shit-hot award-winning writer with nothing to gain from lending a fan-boy blogger a hand, or a sordid example of the cynical you-scratch-my-back blurbing that plagues the industry today? YOU decide!

1 comment:

Peter Rozovsky said...

I don't give a rat's rear end if you and Guthrie logroll one another until the cows come home if it will help get The Big O published in the U.S.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
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