Review of The Imitation of Patsy Burke: Jesus, Karl Marx, Caravaggio, Nietzsche and Dante

Declan Burke is not only the accomplished Irish crime novelist, whose book ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL, was recently listed by both the Ireland AM Crime Fiction section of the 2011 Irish Book Awards, and the UK Sunday Times, as one of the best novels of 2011, he is also the driving force behind the internationally acclaimed Irish crime blog, Crime Always Pays. The Sunday Times went so far as to say that ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL was among the most memorable books of the year, of any genre. American readers will be pleased to know that Absolute Zero Cool has been on sale in the U.S. since last week.




I therefore felt honored beyond words, a couple of weeks ago, to be invited to Declan's "Ya Wanna do it Here, or Down the Station, Punk?" author interview, and felt even more honored to see today's post, on Crime Always Pays, about my novel, THE IMITATION OF PATSY BURKE, which reads:

'I ran a Q&A with John J. Gaynard a couple of weeks ago, which very nearly sparked off a war in the comments box between John and a couple of French chaps unimpressed with his take on the French sense of humour. Anyhoo, John J. Gaynard's current offering is THE IMITATION OF PATSY BURKE, which sounds a fascinating prospect - and delivers handsomely, according to Kirkus Reviews. To wit:

THE IMITATION OF PATSY BURKE, John J. Gaynard
Booze, brawls, sex and schizophrenia—such is the artist's life in Paris, according to this raucous satire. 

When Patsy Burke, a world-famous Irish sculptor living in France, wakes up in his hotel with his body torn and bloody and no recollection of how it got that way, he's not particularly surprised. A raging alcoholic given to beating up pimps in Paris dives, he's used to blackouts and drunk tanks. Unfortunately, his latest bender has left a dead man in its wake, and Patsy's attempt to piece together what he's been doing for the last few days triggers a reckoning with his past and his demons. Said demons take the form of bickering voices inside his head, including Caravaggio, a Nietzchean figure who eggs on Patsy's fistfights and womanizing; Goody Two-Shoes, a prim woman who castigates his atrocious treatment of friends and lovers; a wispy romantic named Forget Me Not; and a scary demiurge called the Chopper, whose insistent promptings to behead women with a meat cleaver are barely fended off by the remnants of Patsy's sanity. These clashing personae narrate Patsy's violent picaresque and roiling internal conflicts; he's bombastic, selfish, preening and cynical, yet steeped in Irish-Catholic guilt. (His downward spiral was touched off when he learned that a statue he made of Jesus being sodomized by two monks—meant as a protest against clerical abuses—is now presiding over orgies conducted by Vatican pedophiles.) Patsy's saga is plenty lurid—"You bit off his right ear and you spat it out"—yet the author's pristine prose keeps it under control. Despite the tale's almost Dantean excesses, Gaynard makes the tone ironic and droll—during an odyssey through the Parisian demimonde, Patsy finds himself discussing Marxist development economics with a glamorous prostitute—and registers delicate shadings of his antihero's psychic travails. 

The result is an entertaining, over-the-top farce that still draws readers in with pathos. - Kirkus Reviews

Interesting stuff. I mean, it's not often you stumble across a review of a crime novel that name-checks Jesus, Karl Marx, Caravaggio, Nietzsche and Dante, is it? Or am I just leading too sheltered a life these days?
For more on John J. Gaynard, check out his Good Reads page …"

My novels,  The Imitation of Patsy Burke  and  Another Life , can be purchased from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr and Amazon.de, in either print or electronic versions. You can find them by following any of the links below:

Amazon.com (Amazon in the United States)
Amazon.co.uk (Amazon in the U.K. and Ireland)
Amazon.fr (Amazon in France)
Amazon.de (Amazon in Germany)

Print and electronic versions can also be purchased from Barnes & Noble in the United States, by following this link: barnesandnoble.com




But Amazon and Barnes and Noble are not the only outlets. You can buy electronic versions of my books, suitable for many different readers, such as iPhone, Sony or Kobo from SMASHWORDS.