“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

Monday, June 30, 2014

Murder, She Wrote

I was on Twitter last week, in a conversation about YA books and teenage reading, and I mentioned that the twin pillars of my teenage reading years – or so it seems, looking back through rose-tinted binoculars – were Agatha Christie (right) and Sven Hassel. Which very probably explains a lot about the kinds of books I like to write now.
  Anyway, there may come a time when I write a feature about why Sven Hassel loomed so large in my imagination, but for now I’ll point you in the direction of a piece I had published last week in the Irish Examiner on the enduring – and indeed, the increasing – popularity of Dame Agatha Christie. It features contributions from Sophie Hannah, who will publish her Poirot novel THE MONOGRAM MURDERS in September, and the inimitable John Curran, who very likely knows more about Agatha Christie than anyone else on the planet.
  If you’re in the mood, you can find the feature here

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