Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Declan Burke at "The Rap Sheet"

The Rap Sheet is currently featuring its eighth in a series of occasional guest bloggers, the Irish author Declan Burke.

Burke is the author of Eight-ball Boogie, "a more-or-less private eye novel from 2003, and The Big O, a humorous crime caper that was released in Ireland last year and numbered among January Magazine’s favorite crime novels of 2007."

Burke also runs the always entertaining blog, Crime Always Pays.

His first post at The Rap Sheet, "1996: Year Zero," is a must-read account of the relatively recent rise and growth of Irish crime fiction.

Yesterday's offering, "Prose by Any Other Name," delves into the question of what separates "novels that are dedicated crime fiction from those that employ crime and/or criminality as a narrative device." Quality stuff--check it out.

The Page 99 Test: The Big O.

New this month from Harcourt: the U.S. edition of Declan Burke's The Big O.

--Marshal Zeringue