Monday, September 24, 2007

The Embiggened O: Karma-Karma-Karma Chameleon

Following on from last week’s karma-tastic Embiggened O post, in which we outlined our reasons for persecuting award-winning writers to big-up our humble offering THE BIG O, Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year winner Allan Guthrie has been gracious enough to offer his opinion, to wit:
“It’s hard to praise THE BIG O highly enough. Excellent writing, great characters, superb storytelling – all played out at a ferocious tempo. By turns it’s dark, funny, moving, brutal, tender and twisted. A book that makes one hell of an impact. More Declan Burke please.”
Which is lovelier than a trumpet break from Forever Changes-era Love. A caveat, however: the sharper-eyed observers among you might have noticed that the Crime Always Pays reviewing elves have recently swooned about Guthrie’s TWO-WAY SPLIT, so much so that Guthrie was moved to plug the review on his interweb page thingy. So – is the above plug a simple case of mutual appreciation from a shit-hot award-winning writer with nothing to gain from lending a fan-boy blogger a hand, or a sordid example of the cynical you-scratch-my-back blurbing that plagues the industry today? YOU decide!

1 comment:

  1. I don't give a rat's rear end if you and Guthrie logroll one another until the cows come home if it will help get The Big O published in the U.S.
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    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete

Declan Burke has published a number of novels, the most recent of which is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. As a journalist and critic, he writes and broadcasts on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE, the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Independent. He has an unfortunate habit of speaking about himself in the third person. All views expressed here are his own and are very likely to be contrary.