Publication: ENDGAME by Casey Hill

ENDGAME is the eighth novel from Casey Hill – aka Melissa Hill and her husband Kevin – to feature Reilly Steel, the Dublin-based forensic investigator. Quoth the blurb elves:

When the body of a teenage boy is found beaten to death in his own bedroom, and a girl attending a party held at his house reports an attempted sexual attack the night before, the Dublin police immediately suspect both incidents are related. But when a sweep of the crime scene throws up some truly puzzling forensic evidence, CSI Reilly Steel wonders if those initial suspicions are correct. As the investigation deepens, and her GFU team begins to delve into the online lives of both teenage victims, even more questions are raised. Can Reilly help the investigators discover the truth about what actually happened on the night of the party?

  For a review of Casey Hill’s TORN, clickety-click here …

“Democracy Is Coming / To The IBA …”

Editor's note: The public vote for the Irish Book Awards closes on Sunday, November 18th. Here’s a post from a couple of weeks back, in which I suggest a couple of books and writers that I think are worth your hanging chad …

I’m not hugely enthralled, I have to say, with the idea that the prizes in the Irish Book Awards will be decided, in part at least, by a public vote. I do appreciate that a public vote means raising the profile of the Awards, and by extension that of all the writers involved, and that this can only be a good thing; and God knows the publishing industry in Ireland, and all who sail in her, could do with all the help they can get right now.
  That said, it just doesn’t feel right to harangue people to vote for your book. For starters, I’m not very good at asking people for favours. If I was, I wouldn’t have retreated into a silent room to fabricate fantastical versions of reality; I’d have gone into politics, and told the whole world any old lie they wanted to hear.
  It’s also true that anyone who spends any time on Twitter or Facebook, et al, is badgered on a daily basis to vote for people and things they’ve never heard of before, which rather undermines the whole basis of the award process in the first place. Literary awards aren’t some kind of Olympic Games, in which there’s only one clear winner; but even allowing for the inevitable intrusion of taste, opinion and prejudice, a literary award should aspire to reward quality rather than quantity. I don’t believe it should become a popularity contest, especially as we already have the bestseller lists as a reasonable guide to a writer’s popularity (or - koff - lack of same).
  And even if you confine your ‘Vote for Me-Me-Me!’ requests to those people who have already read and liked your book, that’s a bit much too. You’ve already asked people to pay good money for the book, and to devote their precious reading time to your tome. To ask any more is a little rude, I think.
  Mind you - and this may sound perverse, or even hypocritical - I do like the notion of the various shortlists being established by public vote, with a panel of judges then deciding which of the shortlisted offerings is the best. Does that make any sense? Or is it just replicating the issues outlined above, but at an earlier stage in the process?
  Anyway, I won’t be asking you to vote for my own book this year, but given that the system is what it is, I’m more than happy to point out some shortlisted books that I’ve read and enjoyed, and which you might well enjoy too if you haven’t already. To wit:

In the Popular Fiction category, Marian Keyes is nominated for THE MYSTERY OF MERCY CLOSE, which is a very funny take on the private eye novel but one that’s pretty dark and poignant too. Incidentally, Melissa Hill is shortlisted here as well, for THE CHARM BRACELET; I haven’t read it, but I was surprised that Casey Hill’s TORN didn’t make the Crime Fiction shortlist.

Over in the Novel of the Year category we have Keith Ridgway’s HAWTHORN & CHILD, another crime-influenced tome, albeit a crime novel in which all the conventional narrative gambits have been excised. A very interesting offering. I’ve also read Kevin Barry’s DARK LIES THE ISLAND, which I’d be inclined to vote for out of sheer devilment, simply because it’s collection of short stories shortlisted for novel of the year.

In the Crime Fiction category, I’ve gone on record many times to say that Tana French’s BROKEN HARBOUR is a superb piece of work, and well worth your time. Part police procedural, part psychological thriller, it’s easily the most terrifying book on any of the shortlists this year. Also in contention is TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT by Niamh O’Connor, a writer I’ve huge admiration for.

I haven’t read any of the titles in the Sports Book of the Year category, but if Keith Duggan’s surfing tome THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY is half as good as his weekly columns in the Irish Times then it’s probably an instant classic. Also, it rips its title from THE PRINCESS BRIDE, which means Keith Duggan should be conferred with sainthood in time for Christmas.

In the Children’s Book of the Year category it’s very difficult to see past Eoin Colfer’s ARTEMIS FOWL AND THE LAST GUARDIAN, which is a stonking good read, very funny, and a satisfying climax to the Artemis Fowl epic cycle. I loved it.

Finally, the Bookshop of the Year category features ye olde Gutter Bookshop in Temple Bar, Dublin, which has hosted more book launches of mine than I care to remember (two, to be precise). A fine emporium, and well worth your patronage.

  So there you have it. The Irish Book Awards - vote early, folks, but not often …

CaSI: Dublin

I mentioned last week that Benny Blanco, aka Benjamin Black, aka John Banville, will see his Quirke novels adapted for a TV series in the UK, and lo! Hardly had the dust settled than another TV series has been announced for an Irish crime writer, or more accurately the pair of Irish crime writers known as CaSI, oops, Casey Hill. Quoth the PR elves:

TV rights to TABOO, the debut thriller by Irish bestselling author Melissa Hill and husband Kevin, have this week been snapped up by a leading UK production company.
  The husband and wife team (who write under the pseudonym Casey Hill) have signed a lucrative TV deal with Ecosse Films, the production company behind hit UK TV shows such as ‘Mistresses’, ‘He Kills Coppers’, ‘Raw’ and films ‘Brideshead Revisited’ and the Anne Hathaway-starred ‘Becoming Jane’.
  Ecosse will produce a CSI-style TV series based on Reilly Steel, the feisty American forensic investigator from TABOO, who comes to Dublin to work alongside the Gardai in order to track down a twisted serial killer who is dispatching citizens at a frightening rate. The book is said to be along the lines of Patricia Cornwell’s popular Kay Scarpetta series, and is the first in a planned series of novels featuring Reilly Steel.
  It is another major coup for the writing pair, who last year secured a six-figure pre-empt from major UK publisher Simon & Schuster for their debut novel, and went on to achieve further translation deals in a string of international territories. Upon its release in Ireland earlier this year, TABOO stormed straight into the bestseller list at No 2. It has just hit the shelves in the UK, and with the story now poised to hit TV screens the book’s popularity is set to soar.

  Hearty congrats to all concerned, especially as even a solidly performing TV series could well translate into millions of potential readers. Given that TABOO and its mooted sequels are set in Dublin, the news should prove a welcome boost to the domestic filmmaking market too.
  Melissa Hill, of course, is already a bestselling author of women’s fiction, and her current tome, SOMETHING FROM TIFFANY’S, is still selling gangbusters after parachuting straight in at No 1 in the Irish fiction charts earlier this summer.
  So there you have it. I never thought I’d write a post containing the words ‘Melissa Hill’, ‘Brideshead Revisited’, ‘John Banville’ and ‘Something From Tiffany’s’ and ‘He Kills Coppers’, but it’s mutating into a funny ol’ world, this Irish crime writing lark …

Countdown To ZERO

The votes are in, the die is cast, and the cover for the forthcoming ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL by your humble correspondent has been decided (right). As all Three Regular Readers will be aware, I had a personal preference for a different cover, one featuring a gas canister, but good sense has prevailed and I’m more than happy with the final decision. If I’m honest, it actually reflects the tone of the book better than my own preference: for some reason, the artwork puts me in mind of a series of Kurt Vonnegut reissues from some years back, and as AZC is a blackly comic novel, it seems appropriate to alert the potential reader to that fact.
  For those of you unfamiliar with the novel, by the way, the blurb elves have been wibbling thusly:

Who in their right mind would want to blow up a hospital?

  “Close it down, blow it up - what’s the difference?”

  Hospital porter Billy K is a man on a mission: to highlight how vulnerable hospitals are, and to demonstrate how easily they might be demolished in a terrorist attack.

  But no one is listening. Deranged by logic, driven by a perverse passion, Billy may have to blow up a hospital in order to prove his point. Only his creator can stop him now, the author who abandoned Billy to his half-life limbo, in which Billy schemes to do whatever it takes to get himself published, or be damned …

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is unlike anything else you’ll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … a feat of extraordinary alchemy.” – Ken Bruen, author of AMERICAN SKIN

  So there you have it, and thank you kindly, Mr Bruen. Other generous commendations run as follows:

“A genuinely original take on noir, inventive and funny. Imagine, if you can, a cross between Flann O’Brien and Raymond Chandler.” - John Banville, author of THE SEA

“Stop waiting for Godot – he’s here. Declan Burke takes the existential dilemma of characters writing themselves and turns it on its ear, and then some. He gives it body and soul … an Irish soul.” - Reed Farrel Coleman, author of EMPTY EVER AFTER

“Declan Burke has broken the mould with ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which is actually very cool indeed. Funny, inventive and hugely entertaining crime fiction - I guarantee you’ll love it.” - Melissa Hill, author of SOMETHING FROM TIFFANY’S

“If you want to find something new and challenging, comic crime fiction is now the place to go … Declan Burke [is] at the vanguard of a new wave of young writers kicking against the clichés and producing ambitious, challenging, genre-bending works.” - Colin Bateman, author of NINE INCHES

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is a surreal rollercoaster of a read, full of the blackest humour, and yet poignant. An outrageously funny novel ... The joy is in the writing itself, all sparky dialogue and wry observation, so smooth that when it cuts, it’s like finding razor blades in honey.” - Deborah Lawrenson, author of THE LANTERN

“Burke has written a deep, lyrical and moving crime novel … an intoxicating and exciting novel of which the master himself, Flann O’Brien, would be proud.” - Adrian McKinty, author of FIFTY GRAND

  ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL will be published next month by the good folk at Liberties Press, and should be available for pre-order any day soon. Rest assured that I’ll keep you posted …

On Putting The ‘Boo!’ Into TABOO

I had an article on female crime writers published in the Irish Times last week, which gloried in the title ‘Why Women Writers Rule the Crime-Ridden Night’. Oooh, spooky. Anyway, it kicked off like thusly …

Casey Hill is a marketing dream. TABOO, the debut novel, presses all the commercial buttons: it’s a police procedural featuring a feisty young woman, the forensic investigator Reilly Steel, who travels from her native California to the mean streets of Dublin only to find herself the target of a resourceful serial killer, the tale given a frisson of sexual tension via Reilly’s relationship with Garda Detective Chris Delaney.
  So far, so good, but Casey Hill has more to offer. ‘Casey Hill’ is the open pseudonym of husband-and-wife writing partnership Kevin and Melissa Hill. Young, attractive and media-friendly, the pair have an unusually strong publishing platform for debutants, given that Melissa Hill is the (self-described) author of eight best-selling chick-lit novels.
  So what’s a chick-lit author doing dirtying her hands with crime fiction gore?
  The easy answer to that question is, ‘Capitalising on her established audience.’ That may sound perverse, given that the perceived wisdom of commercial publishing is that when it comes to genre fiction, women prefer books that feature pink sparkly covers and kitten heels, whereas men tend to go for mayhem and murder.
  The perceived wisdom couldn’t be further from the truth …

  To get to the truth, or at least my version of it, just clickety-click here …
  If you can’t be bothered doing that - and really, who could blame you? - you can find an extract from TABOO here …

Fare Thee Well, Then, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL …

… I knew thee well. It’s a Red Letter day, folks. One of those days that means nothing to anyone else, in the grand scheme of things - no deals were struck, no books were signed, no fortunes were made. It’s the day when I finally put to bed the final draft of my latest book, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL (mocked-up cover, right), tucked it up tight under its blankets, to sleep, perchance to dream.
  It’s a fine feeling indeed, one of accomplishment and satisfaction, of having gone the distance, run the race. That feeling won’t last long, I know - this moment is the eye of the storm, the real-but-false period of calm. If previous experiences of finishing a book are anything to go by, soon enough the bliss will give way to exhaustion, the satisfaction to doubt, and I’ll go into a slump, a kind of cold turkey withdrawal. As soon as I send the book to the publisher - and by ‘as soon’ I mean within minutes - all my mind’s eye will be able to see is the mistakes, the gaffes, the missteps, and we’ll be back into the storm again. Still, at least we have the safety-net of the proofs to come, even if, right now, the very idea of reading a single line of it again is enough to turn my stomach.
  The fact that the redraft coincided with receiving the proofs for DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS didn’t help matters much, but now they’re both done and dusted (if not yet polished), and it feels like I’ve lost about two stone in weight, most of it around the shoulders.
  Anyway, that’s it. Stick a fork in my ass, I’m done. Done with writing for the foreseeable future. No more rising at 5am to snatch a couple of hours before the day begins. No more staring bleary-eyed at a screen at 11.30pm, proofing the precious / pathetic few words I managed to scratch out before dawn. No more feeling guilty for not writing, or feeling guilty for writing and stealing time away from my family. No more the corrosive decision, made every day, of whether to write (fiction) for love or (journalism) for money. No more doubts and second-guessing myself for six months at least, and a fortnight in Cyprus to come next month. Yea, verily, my cup runneth over …
  So - is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL any good? I honestly can’t say. I’m still too close to it, obviously, to have any kind of perspective; besides, it’s not typical of my previous books. It’s not a conventional story, it’s not typically a crime novel, or any other kind of novel either, so I really don’t have much to measure it against.
  I did get a huge boost at the start of last week, which arrived at the perfect time, given that I was in the throes of self-doubt and comma-fiddling, when Melissa Hill got in touch. As with all the other big-ups for the book (scroll down, left), Melissa Hill is an author: she writes women’s fiction as Melissa Hill, and has recently published, with her husband, a crime novel under the pseudonym Casey Hill. The gist of her verdict ran thusly:

“Declan Burke has broken the mould with ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, which is actually very cool indeed. Funny, inventive and hugely entertaining crime fiction - I guarantee you’ll love it.” - Melissa Hill

  Very pleasant it was to receive, as you might appreciate, and very grateful I am too. I thank you kindly, ma’am.
  Here’s the thing, though - the story, which is essentially about a hospital porter bent on blowing up the hospital where he works, is framed by a conversation between the book’s author and said porter, as they redraft the story into what they hope will be a commercial prospect that will see the character of the porter liberated from the limbo of non-publication.
  In other words, it’s entirely possible that readers who are writers will like the book more than readers who aren’t writers. So there’s that to worry about.
  But I’ll worry about it anon. Today is the writing equivalent of that lazy, yawny, stretchy time between sleep and waking on a Bank Holiday morning, when nothing seems real and everything seems possible. Hell, there’s even a rumour, courtesy of my publisher and his sojourn to the London Book Fair, that an American publisher - very well regarded, although it would be impolite to name names - is taking a long, hard look at AZC.
  So there you have it. The book is done. Time to put myself to bed, tucked up tight beneath the blankets, to sleep, perchance to dream …

Hill, Thrills And Bellyaches

Some days it seems like I’m always the last to know, etc. Further proof that we’re staring into the abyss of an economic apocalypse, if any were needed, comes with the news that best-selling Irish chick-lit author, Melissa Hill, has turned her hand to writing thrillers. To wit:

  Bestselling Irish chick-lit author Melissa Hill has switched to thriller writing.
  A new book she has co-written with her businessman husband Kevin was bought this week for a six-figure sum by Simon & Schuster in the UK and big money deals have also been done for other countries.
  The forensic crime thriller is called TABOO and represents a major literary crossover for Melissa whose eight chick-lit novels to date have all been bestsellers.
  TABOO was snapped up by publishers in several countries within 24 hours of being offered by Hill’s agent. It’s the first in a series she and Kevin will be penning together under the name Casey Hill. - John Spain, Irish Independent

  So wot's it all abaht, then? Quoth Irish Publishing News:

TABOO, the first of a six-figure, two book deal, will be released in Spring 2011 and will feature the character Riley Steel – a Quantico trained forensic investigator who comes to Dublin to head up the GFU, a new state-of-the-art Irish crime lab.

  Riley Steel, eh? In a way it’s almost too neat for words. Chick lit celebrated the shopping-and-fucking excess of the Celtic Tiger, most of it the literary equivalent of shiny, tacky bling. Now that the party’s over, and everyone’s wondering who paid for it on the never-never, crime fiction steps in to investigate.
  Hey, maybe Amanda Brunker will slip a mickey finn into her next Champagne novel.
  So: am I going to bellyache about the chick-lit brigade stomping all over the crime scene in their six-inch stilettos? Nope. Could. Not. Be. Arsed. The best of luck to Melissa with her new venture, and here’s hoping it’s not a one-way street. I, for one, would pay big bucks to read Gene Kerrigan’s chick-lit tale of a former Dublin gangster who has gone all Gok Wan and hit the runways of Paris and Rome modelling Armani briefs, but only as a front for his undercover role as a globe-trotting hitman. Gene? You know it makes sense …

ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL

Short-listed for the 2011 Irish Book Awards, and the winner of the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award at Crimefest, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL (Liberties Press) is something of a novel novel, as the reviews below suggest. First, the blurb elves:

Who in the right mind would want to blow up a hospital?

“Close it down, blow it up - seriously, what’s the difference?”

Billy Karlsson needs to get real. Literally. A hospital porter with a sideline in euthanasia, Billy is a character trapped in the purgatory of an abandoned novel. Deranged by logic, driven beyond sanity, Billy makes his final stand: if killing old people won’t cut the mustard, the whole hospital will have to go up in flames.

Only his creator can stop him now, the author who abandoned Billy to his half-life limbo, in which Billy schemes to do whatever it takes to get himself published, or be damned …

Cover Quotes:

“A genuinely original take on noir, inventive and funny … Imagine, if you can, a cross between Flann O’Brien and Raymond Chandler.” - John Banville

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is unlike anything else you’ll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … A feat of extraordinary alchemy.” - Ken Bruen

ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL from Liberties Press

ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL from Amazon UK

ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL from Kindle US (& Ireland)

ABSOLUTE ZERO COOK on Kindle UK

The Good Word:

“Metafiction? Postmodern noir? These and other labels will be applied to Burke’s newest; any might be apt, but none is sufficient. ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is largely a literary novel that draws on history, mythology, and literature … Noir fans may not care for this one, but lovers of literary fiction will find much to savour.” - Booklist

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is brilliant … a joy-ride through the history of Western culture … ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL will stand comparison to the very best of Italo Calvino, Milan Kundera and Umberto Eco.” - Amazon review *****

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL starts a slow burn that ultimately builds to a literally explosive conclusion … Wickedly sharp, darkly humorous, uncommonly creative and brilliantly executed.” - Elizabeth A. White

“Stylistically removed from anything being attempted by his peers … [a] darkly hilarious amalgam of classic crime riffing (hep Elmore Leonard-isms and screwballing) and the dimension-warping reflections of Charlie Kaufman or Kurt Vonnegut. Like the latter’s SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL sees another Billy “come unstuck” in what is, frankly, a brilliant premise.” - Sunday Independent

“Among the many crime fiction references, it’s [Patricia] Highsmith that resonates most with ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL (for me) … Declan Burke has cemented his central position in the current wave of neo-noir and contemporary crime fiction.” - Glenn Harper, International Noir

“Burke sprinkles his way-outside-the-box noir with quotes from Beckett, Bukowski, and other literary names as he explores the nature of writing and the descent of personal darkness. Those looking for a highly intellectual version of Stephen King’s THE DARK HALF will be most satisfied.” - Publishers Weekly


“Karlsson is a thrilling creation, up there with the Patrick Batemans of literature … a masterpiece of unsavoury reflection on history and Darwinism blended with a hefty dose of sociopathy, yet always leavened with pitch-black wit … To borrow from [Ken] Bruen's blurb, ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is unlike anything else you’ll read this year: funny and disturbing, it also straddles a fine line between the absurd and the profound. It never forgets the conventions of crime fiction, while simultaneously subverting them. A triumph.” - Sunday Times

“Declan Burke’s ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a cigarette paper … [a] sublimely crazy book.” - Stuart Neville

“Thus begins a fascinating hybrid of MISERY, AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS, THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN, and who knows what else … ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL isn’t quite like anything else you’ve read, in any genre. It’s clever, intimate, passionate, and funny: altogether a wonderful achievement.” - Irish Times

“What is most refreshing … is its ambition. It is rare that a so-called genre book attempts to wrest free of its constraints and do something entirely different. ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is a genre-buster. Clever, funny, challenging, surreal, unexpected and entirely original.” - Irish Independent

“Declan Burke plunges into surreal realms in this exhilarating, cleverly wrought novel … Comparisons to Flann O’Brien’s AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS are obvious, yet Burke’s canny control of his novel means they’re positive ones.” - Sunday Business Post

“A new Irish absurd, the Blazing Saddles of crime fiction … The illogicality that surrounds us, the double speak and unthink, is very much the secret subject of this book … It’s a novel that is mentally stimulating, entertaining, fun, provocative, original and ambitious.” - Arena, RTE

“An ambitious, satisfying black comedy … subverting genres within the very loose framework of a crime thriller. So dark is the novel-within-a-novel premise that it makes Fight Club look like a Marx Brothers knockabout comedy.” - Evening Herald

“We’re into a self-conscious world of meta-fiction, somewhere between Muriel Sparks’ THE COMFORTERS, Bret Easton Ellis’ LUNAR PARK, and Flann O’Brien ... It’s a measure of Burke’s achievement in this funny and clever book that he can stand comparison to these three … the book is witty, philosophical and a page-turning crime thriller.” - The Dubliner

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is an absolutely wonderful read, start to finish. Declan Burke has penned the most original work of cross-genre fiction I’ve read in a long time. Literary, socially conscious, journalistically cynical … an absolute must-read.” - Charlie Stella

“Satire and high art meets screwball noir … ABSOLUTE ZEROCOOLtakes the crime genre and its many tropes and stereotypes and throws them out the window. It’s a genuinely unique tale.” - The View From the Blue House

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is a fine example of comedic crime noir … this is an author you need to read.” - Mystery File

“My point is, there is increasing room for super-consciousness, post-rational literature -- particularly in our post-rational world -- along the lines of Woyzeck, Bertold Brecht, Robbe-Grillet, Samuel Beckett, and others. Most recently, Declan Burke’s ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. My kind of book. Maybe it could be called Gonzolit. Serious as the World Series, clean as Van Gogh’s ear surgery, worthy of our times.” - Malcolm Berry

“This isn’t crime for profit’s sake, with a little hipness thrown in; it’s depravity examining its navel … ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is brilliant and baffling, enjoyable and vexing, funny and disturbing.” - One Bite At a Time

“This is not a ‘crime’ book in the normal sense of having a detective, a killer and an easy to follow plot. It is a stunningly beautiful and achingly funny work which probes the type of existential questions raised by works like NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND and CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Dostoyevsky, and works by Sartre, Camus (THE PLAGUE), Kafka, andIreland’s Beckett and Flann O’Brien.” - Amazon review (1) *****

“Burke writes with humour and wit, often sending up the crime genre itself. The reader’s tolerance will be tested with each new sadistic twist.” - Books Ireland

“The most twisted, unusual book I’ve ever read.” - Various Random Thoughts

“On its surface it crackles with wit, aphorisms, black one-liners, erudite literary allusions, popular culture references, and frequently surprising wordplay … ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is a literary novel and a darkly humorous work of philosophy. It easily falls into that sub-category of intellectual noir … Dante is well served here, all around.” - Little Known Gems

“The debt to Flann O'Brien is clear but unlike O’Brien’s coldly brilliant mindscapes, Burke’s creation has a heart as well as a brain.” - Amazon review (2) *****

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL sees Burke stretching the crime thriller genre until it snaps and then sewing it back together with some of the finest prose and funniest dialogue you’ll encounter this year. I can’t recommend this book enough. Destined to be a cult classic.” - Amazon Review (3) *****

“Dreamlike and invigorating, [AZC] combines surrealism with the best of noir fiction in an enthralling reminiscence of Flann O’Brien’s ATSWIM-TWO-BIRDS … Burke’s writing issharp, funny, and excruciatingly honest … a genuinely original and inventive novel … a clever, personal, and charming story.” - The Crime of It All

“Declan Burke has crafted an exciting, hilarious, thoughtful and moving story … I’ve read a lot of cracking novels this year but ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is my favourite. And it could well be yours, too.” - Mean Streets

“This is a bloody good thriller. It’s also funny, thought-provoking and very satisfying. Some reviews refer to it as possibly becoming a cult classic; I think it deserves to be more.” - Booksquawk

“A challenging, pleasing, provocative, wise-cracking read … ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL contains more than enough material for a couple of thousand conventional novels.” - John J Gaynard

“ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL is unlike anything else you’ll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … A feat of extraordinary alchemy.” - Ken Bruen

“A harrowing and yet hilarious examination of the gradual disintegration of a writer’s personality, as well as a damned fine noir novel … Burke has outdone himself this time; it’s a hell of a read.” - Scott Philips

“Declan Burke has broken the mould with ABSOLUTE ZEROCOOL, which is actually very cool indeed. Funny, inventive and hugely entertaining crime fiction - I guarantee you’ll love it.” - Melissa Hill

“Stop waiting for Godot - he’s here. Declan Burke takes the existential dilemma of characters writing about themselves and turns it on its ear, and then some. He gives it body and soul … an Irish soul.” - Reed Farrel Coleman