“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

Thursday, January 3, 2013

The Green, Green Grass Of Home

Mick Clifford’s GHOST TOWN was one of the finest of the many Irish crime fiction debuts in 2012, and I’m delighted to see it get a snazzy new cover (right) and - presumably - a massive reprint in the wake of all the excellent reviews it garnered.
  Better yet, it looks like Mick Clifford hasn’t allowed the (koff) grass to grow under his feet. There’s a new title due from him later this year, when Headline publish THE DEAL in May. Quoth the blurb elves:
Karen Riney is at a loose end in Dublin, trying to get a job and straighten things out with crime boss Pascal Nix for her jailed ex-boyfriend, when she hits on a great idea to make money. In the depths of recession, there’s no business like the growhouse business. Kevin Wyman, drowning in a sea of debt, also wants to straighten things out with Nix, but his troubles begin to mount when despair sends him off into the world of online affairs. Dara Burns is a hitman for hire who ends up working for Nix, but his past is catching up with him as somebody is intent on making him pay for his crimes. Three diverse characters are thrown together by fate and set upon a trail of greed, destruction and revenge where the best that can be hoped for is just to stay alive.
  A journalist by trade, Mick Clifford appears to have his zeitgeisty finger firmly on the nation’s pulse - only yesterday a growhouse was discovered in Carlow with half a mill’s worth of weed at home. Yup, Carlow. Or Carhigh, as precisely no one will be calling it from here on in …
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