“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

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

O’Toole’s Of The Trade

Irish journo Michael O’Toole (right) is the crime reporter with the Daily Star, and has just kicked off what could well be a very interesting blog, entitled ‘Crime, Ink: The Blog of an Irish Crime Reporter’. Quoth Michael:
“I’m just trying to show what it is like to be a crime correspondent in Ireland today. I want to talk about crime and what it’s like to report on it. Being a crime reporter today is the most interesting, the most frightening, the most exciting, the most rewarding and most challenging of jobs. Read on and I’ll tell you why ...”
  O’Toole was a co-author, with John Mooney, of BLACK OPERATIONS: THE SECRET WAR AGAINST THE REAL IRA (2005). The Big Question: Will O’Toole do the right thing and get scribbling crime fiction? Only time, that notoriously prevaricating doity rat, will tell …

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why does matt cooper always plug the wrong url for your website?

seana graham said...

Okay, so now I know who the dubious character is over on Liliput's blog. I'm reassured.

By the way, I know a lot of adorable babies, but you do have one of the most photogenic children in the world.

Okay--back to crime.

Declan Burke said...

Does Matt plug the wrong url? I've never noticed. What does he say?

Seanag, the 'dubious character' over on Lilyput's blog is actually my brother, Gavin. A ne'er-do-well, it's true. He even writes movie scripts ... Truly, he has gone to the Dark Side.

Cheers, Dec

Anonymous said...

He always says crimealwayspays.com which is a dead website.

I've emailed Todayfm a few times about it but no joy.

Gerard Brennan said...

I've been listening to the Matt Cooper show a lot recently. Love his interview style. But my journey home always ends before I catch any of your reviews. Whenabouts are they usually on air? I'll make a point of flicking on the radio in the house for them.

Cheers

gb

seana graham said...

Oops. No disrespect to your brother. I just hadn't seen him in the family shots before. I'm sure he's gone over to the dark side in a good way.

What does this all have to do with Irish crime fiction? Absolutely nothing. I do wish we Americans had more direct access to a lot of this stuff, though. Okay, I don't actually care about the other Americans. I meant I wish I had more access. It's good that a lot of it does eventually filter over this way, though.