Declan Burke

The Lost and the Blind is Declan Burke’s sixth novel. Previous novels include Eightball Boogie, Crime Always Pays and Absolute Zero Cool.

From Burke's Q & A with Harry Guerin for RTE Ten:

Harry Guerin: Nazi submarines off the coast of Donegal – how and when did this idea come up on your own sonar?

Declan Burke: I'm from Sligo originally but I spend quite a bit of time in Donegal these days, up around Lough Swilly, and I've heard a few stories about German submarines operating off Donegal during World War II. Naturally, once I heard those stories I was thinking straight away about how I might work them into a novel. In the past I've written private detective stories and comedy crime capers, but I've always wanted to write a spy novel, albeit one in which the hero is a normal person who finds himself plunged into the murky world of spooks and triple-crosses and so forth – William Goldman's Marathon Man is one of my favourite thrillers. So I thought it might be fun to try to bring those elements together, and The Lost and the Blind is the result.

The modern part of the story takes place during the last days of the Celtic Tiger. Did you have a lot of anger that you wanted to get down on paper?

Not really, to be honest. There was a lot of anger about the mismanagement and corruption of this country in Absolute Zero Cool, which came out in 2011, and Slaughter's Hound, which was 2012, but polemic doesn't necessarily make for good storytelling. At this stage, like most people, I'm mostly inured to the stupidity of it all. I suppose...[read on]

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

Writers Read: Declan Burke.

--Marshal Zeringue