What is Declan Burke reading?

This weekend's featured contributor at Writers Read: Declan Burke, author of Absolute Zero Cool.

His entry begins:

Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin

Most of my reading these days is work-related, for reviews, interviews, background prep, etc. I do try hard to slip in one non-work book per month, though, as a read for pure pleasure, and this month’s offering is Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin.

I first came to Tom Franklin via his very fine Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, which is a contemporary crime novel set in Mississippi. What piqued my interest there were the back page blurbs, which featured glowing recommendations from the likes of (if memory serves) Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos, but also Philip Roth. True enough, the novel was a super read. It’s a very good crime novel, but Franklin has a facility for language that sets him apart from most of his peers.

Hell at the Breech is an earlier novel, from 2003, and also qualifies as a crime novel. Set in rural Alabama in the late 1890s, it opens with the murder of a man by a pair of hooded vigilantes, a murder investigated by Sheriff Billy Waite. It’s...[read on]

Among the early praise for Absolute Zero Cool:

"A genuinely original take on noir, inventive and funny."
--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

"[A] fine example of comedic crime noir. As I was reading it, I was thinking of Donald Westlake and Parker.... If you enjoy modern crime noir, especially with an Irish comedic touch, this is an author you need to read."
--Michael Shonk

“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

Learn more about the book and author at Declan Burke's Crime Always Pays blog.

The Page 99 Test: The Big O.

The Page 69 Test: Absolute Zero Cool.

My Book, The Movie: Absolute Zero Cool.

Writers Read: Declan Burke.

--Marshal Zeringue