“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, March 2, 2014

Third Colour: Blue

There was a very nice review by Martin Doyle of Eoin McNamee’s BLUE IS THE NIGHT (Faber) in the Irish Times on Saturday, which opened thusly:
In the traditional murder mystery, death shatters society’s settled calm, then the killer is caught and punished and normality is restored. But what if society is not normal, if in “a Protestant State for a Protestant people” the killer is a Protestant and his victim a Catholic? Will justice sneak a peek from beneath its blindfold and, with a weather eye on the mob, fix the scales to avert a riot and let justice go hang?
  Who will guard the guards, asked Juvenal? Who will judge the judges? Eoin McNamee, damningly, does so here. He has previous. McNamee made his name as an author of psychologically penetrating and stylised literary reimaginings of real-life crimes, a murky world of subterfuge and sabotage, conspiracy and camouflage, from the Shankill Butchers ( Resurrection Man ) to the murderous activities and murder of the undercover British intelligence officer Robert Nairac ( The Ultras ) to the death of Diana, princess of Wales ( 12.23 ).
  Blue Is the Night is the third in a loose trilogy based on notorious murders in the North, which begins with the darkly compelling Blue Tango, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2001. Its subject was the murder in 1952 of Judge Lance Curran’s 19-year-old daughter Patricia, the wrongful conviction of Iain Hay Gordon for the crime and the suspicious behaviour of her family.
  For the rest, clickety-click here …
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