Mark Your Calendar

July 7 is a red letter day. No, not just because it’s Doc Severinsen’s birthday (also Gustav Mahler’s, but I never met Mahler personally, nor played a gig with him), but because Declan Burke’s new book, Absolute Zero Cool will drop this Thursday.

Dec has been a good friend to me and to this blog for several years, so yes, I’m in the tank. It should also be noted that we became acquainted when I interviewed him after reading and reviewing The Big O, which earned a highly coveted place on my ten best reads of 2008. (If Michelle Bachman can call herself a presidential candidate, I can call a spot on my list highly coveted.) It was the quality of his writing that served as our initial introduction; it wasn’t till later I learned what a good guy he is. A tireless promoter of all things good in Irish (and other) crime writing, his blog is updated more often Lindsey Lohan’s rap sheet. How his writing has failed to gain traction is pone of the great mysteries of the 21st Century, right up there with Snooki’s popularity.

I haven’t read AZC yet, so no spoiler warnings are necessary. Here’s the description from Irish Books Direct:

‘This man at the foot of my bed is too sharply dressed to be anything but a lawyer or a pimp. He is reading, intently, which leads me to believe he is more likely a pimp, as these days lawyers are more usually to be found writing novels than reading them.’ So begins an unforgettable trip into the seedy crime underworld and deep inside the author’s head. Rarely has a book within a book been more entertaining.

American readers can pre-order (as I have) at The Book Depository; shipping to the States is free. Based on Dec’s previous work and what I know of this book, it will be as much fun as you’re likely to have reading this year, and it will not go where you expect it.