Athlone writer launches his tenth book

Athlone man, Sean (J.P.) Burke, has just had his tenth book published, his seventh by Custom Book publications, the Hong Kong-based publishing company who contacted him after reading some of his three early self-published books.

This latest book, entitled ‘Case Closed’, gives an eighth outing to Detective Sergeant Scobie Tierney, the hard drinking, nonconforming Irish policeman who pays scant attention to the rule book and plays the game his own way.

Scobie has built up somewhat of a cult following and this latest outing is eagerly awaited by his select group of fans in Ireland and abroad.

As with all of his books, this latest title is available on Amazon and other book sites under the name J.P Burke. He readily admits that he is no David Baldacci or John Grisham and while his titles sell in the hundreds rather than the hundreds of thousands, he takes great satisfaction from the fact that they have been read in Ireland, England, America and Australia and he has received some vey favourable feedback from some of his readers.

Sean is also a contributor to the Facebook group, Athlone Down Memory Lane on which he occasionally posts another of his great loves, poetry. He has written poems in tribute to such legendary figures as Robbie Henshaw, Ray Collins, Joe Flynn, Frankie McDonald, Piccolo Whelan, Brendan Shine and renowned artist Anna Boles as well as pieces on the old Genoa Café and the Shamrock Lodge Hotel. His works also cover some current social issues such as the pandemic and climate change. He himself was on the receiving end of another Athlone man’s very kind words recently when well known singer and musician Thom O’Neill penned a song about him. He found this a very humbling experience and was, and always will be, deeply indebted to Thom for the great honour.

He was a well-known sportsman who excelled in basketball in his earlier life. In the sixties, he was a member of the St Mary’s team which won many tournaments all around Ireland and in the eighties, was an integral part of the Vintage Athlone team which won Midland League and Championship honours, competing as they did, against players half their age. Sean was capped for Leinster on many occasions and holds the distinction of being the first player in Ireland to be capped for his country at Under 15, Minor, Under 20 and senior levels.

An avid reader himself, he has just finished reading another Athlonian’s first novel, ‘Something Bigger’ by Sheila Killian, a beautifully written book by a person with a great command of the English language.

When asked to compare his style against Ms Killian’s, he smiled ruefully and said that her style was akin to Ferrero Rocher while his was more like Smarties.

Another book on his to read list is John Killeen’s ‘One for sorrow, two for joy’ which he hopes to get to over the Christmas period.

The full list of Sean’s titles as published by Custom Book Publications are: The Schiapello Cross, A Snatch of Tinsel, Cauldron of Conspiracy, The Zhang Medallion, Petra, Random Number and now Case Closed. His three self-published titles are: Excalibur’s run, Perfumed Cargo and The Pengwu Dragonhead. All ten titles can be found on Amazon. For any potential new reader, he recommends that they start with his first and favourite book ‘The Schiapello Cross’.