Set during the Jazz Age, THE LAMMISTERS is a novel that plunders the literary canon in the manner of a starved child let loose in a sweetshop. Of all its influences, though, the strongest is that of jazz itself, although not the jazz of that era, but that of the post-bebop period: throughout the writing, I was listening to a playlist made up of Davis, Coltrane, Mingus, Coleman, et al. Being no scholar of music, all I can say is that I love the playful irreverence, the ceaseless reinvention, the sense of an ongoing homage to the history of jazz even as the music itself is bent out of shape and ..read more

It’s been a busy end to 2019 for yours truly, folks, and we wind down tired but happy, with THE LAMMISTERS published – something I thought would never happen – and in receipt of some very encouraging reviews. To wit: “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 ..read more

I was delighted to take part in the Irish Times’ podcast on the Best Crime Novels of 2019 recently, in which Declan Hughes, the Irish Times’ literary editor Martin Doyle and yours truly spent a very enjoyable hour or so talking about the finest offerings of the year. Among the writers mentioned are Laura Lippman, James Lee Burke, Jane Casey, Dervla McTiernan, Adrian McKinty, Kate Atkinson, Dave Duggan, Hanna Jameson, Anthony J. Quinn, Attica Locke, Claire McGowan and – last but by no means least – Jess Kidd.   For the audio, clickety-click here ..read more

The Irish Times was kind enough to enquire as to my ‘process’ when I’m writing the first draft of a novel, and - rather more surprisingly - published my answer. It begins a lot like this: I’m often asked about the best way to write a novel’s first draft, and thank God for that, for otherwise I’d have no social life at all.   For some reason it generally seems to happen when I discover myself at the bottom of Dawson Street around lunchtime, waiting to cross over to the Trinity side.   “I say, Mr Burke!” bawls some aspiring scribe who, having recently perambulated around from College Green, ha ..read more

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I’m delighted to say that my latest book, THE LAMMISTERS, will be published by No Alibis Press next month. Quoth the blurb elves: Hollywood, 1923. Having ascended into the pantheon of America’s Most Wanted by dispatching his mortal foes to the holding pens where Cecil B. DeMille keeps his expendable extras, Irish bootlegger Rusty McGrew goes on the lam with the shimmering goddess Vanessa Hopgood, her enraptured swain Sir Archibald l’Estrange-B’stard and Edward ‘Bugs’ Dooley, the hapless motion picture playwright who has stepped through the looking-glass into his very own Jazz Age adaptation of ..read more

I’m delighted to be taking part in Murder One again, which, I hope, is in the process of establishing itself as an annual event. I’ll be hosting the ‘Past Crimes’ event on Saturday, November 2nd, which the blurb elves have rather neatly summed up as follows: Past Crimes: Jess Kidd, Henrietta McKervey and Paddy Hirsch with Declan Burke From Things in Jars to Violet Hill, London’s only female private detective, via Hudson’s Kill and the Irish gangs of New York, three novelists use the past as a backdrop to their page-turning adventures of deception, danger – and detection. Declan Burke, previo ..read more

“An aversion to the underland is buried in language,” writes Robert Macfarlane in Underland (Hamish Hamilton). “To be ‘uplifted’ is preferable to being ‘depressed’ or ‘pulled down’. ‘Catastrophe’ literally means a ‘downwards turn’, ‘cataclysm’ a ‘downwards violence’.” Thus, he says, we are rarely inspired to look down; the human instinct is to look around, or up, as Macfarlane documented in his magisterial Mountains of the Mind (2008).   But even our fascination with the world’s upper reaches is a relatively recent development. Before the Age of Enlightenment, only a madman would seek to fin ..read more

I’ll be hosting a creative writing workshop in Dundalk this coming Thursday, September 19th, titled ‘Character is Mystery’. I’ve stolen the title (and much else, of course) from John Connolly’s words of wisdom on the business of writing, this on the basis that talent borrows but genius steals; and I’ll be using SKIN DEEP by Liz Nugent (who recently appeared in Dundalk as part of the Creative Spark series of talks) and Patricia Highsmith’s THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY as example texts. The details: Date: Thursday 19th September Time: 11am-1pm (coffee before session at 10:30am) Price: FREE (but booki ..read more

I’m delighted to be taking part in Culture Night on Friday, September 20th, when I will be giving a talk at Blessington Library in Wicklow about the business of writing, and chatting about the whys and wherefores of my latest tome, THE LAMMISTERS, which will be published in November by No Alibis Press. Quoth the blurb elves: Join us in Blessington Library in conversation with Declan Burke about his new book The Lammisters, a comic novel, which will be published by No Alibis Press in November 2019. Declan Burke is from Sligo but currently lives in County Wicklow. He is an author, editor and jo ..read more