“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

Sunday, October 13, 2013

And Into The Riverbank We Dived

I was in the Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge yesterday, where I hosted a conversation between Brian McGilloway and Declan Hughes for the Kildare Readers Festival, which was – no, really – a lot more lively than the picture suggests. Brian read an excerpt from HURT, which will be published later this month, a follow-up to the Lucy Black novel LITTLE GIRL LOST (which has sold in excess of a very impressive 300,000 e-book copies). Declan, meanwhile, read an intriguing taster from his forthcoming novel, ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE, which will be published next February. A departure from his Ed Loy series of private eye novels, it’s a domestic suspense novel set in the US.
  All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable event. The Kildare Readers Festival is always meticulously organised, hosted in a beautiful setting at the Riverbank, and the hospitality is superb. I bumped into Louise Phillips, who had been speaking at an earlier event, and also Niamh Boyce, who told me that she’d taken part in a writer’s workshop in Castlecomer in Kilkenny many moons ago, co-hosted by myself and Garbhan Downey. I was relieved, to be honest, to learn that I hadn’t put her off writing entirely; indeed, Niamh was holding a copy of THE HERBALIST, her debut novel, which was published earlier this year to a veritable chorus of critical acclaim. Happy days.
  That’s it for public appearances in October, but November is shaping up to be a busy month. Brian McGilloway curates ‘Killer Books’ in Derry on the first weekend of the month, and ‘Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival’ takes place at Trinity College on November 22nd / 23rd. I’ll also be hosting a public interview with Scott Turow at Smock Alley on November 11th, which should be a real treat. If you can make it along to any of those, I’d love to see you there …
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