“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

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

A Tale Of Two Titles

Apologies for the confusion, but I can’t make out if Alex Barclay’s new offering is called BLACK RUN or TAINTED – Amazon is calling it BLACK RUN but the title on the book is TAINTED. If anyone out there can confirm what the official title is, I’d be so grateful I’d probably faint. What we can say for certain is that the book will be published on November 26th, and that the blurb elves have been wittering thusly:
Twenty years ago ... A woman lies battered and bleeding to death beneath the gaze of her killer, her head bludgeoned, glass in her face, coughing blood with her last breaths. With a final, shattering blow, she is gone. Present day ... Special Agent Ren Bryce is in trouble. After the brutal murder of her trusted friend and therapist, Dr Helen Wheeler, and the curious alteration of her psychiatric records, she finds herself fighting for her innocence of the heinous crime she did not commit. With a dark connection to a savage murder committed two decades earlier, conflicting evidence, and the return of an old enemy hell-bent on Ren’s destruction, she must battle for the answers she needs to clear her name and find the real killer, whatever the danger, whatever the cost.
  BLACK RUN / TAINTED, by the way, is the follow-up to last year’s BLOOD RUNS COLD, which won the inaugural Best Crime Novel at the Irish Book Awards earlier this year. Will BLACK RUN / TAINTED secure Alex a second gong? Only time, that notoriously impolitic tittle-tattler, will tell …
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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Declan,
I met Alex's editor, Wayne Brooks, at Harrogate this year and I asked him the same question. He told me that Alex wanted to call it TAINTED, but that he wanted to call it BLACK RUN. I got the impression he was winning the argument... I can see where he's coming from - BLOOD RUNS COLD and BLACK RUN have an implied theme/brand in the titles, and since they're both Ren Bryce books then it does make sense. Brand is king...

October 14, 2009 at 11:39 AM
Anonymous said...

Hey Declan,
was just musing on a confusion of release dates and titles over on my own blog. Nielsen was listing BLACK RUN to be pubbed in August 2010, but not anymore. Nothing there for TAINTED. Big wholesalers are listing TAINTED - with cover art (the clincher in my book) and a release date of 26/11/2009. I'm betting TAINTED by the end of this month.

November 13, 2009 at 12:59 AM

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