“Iraqi Icicle” by Bernie Dowling

Review of Iraqi Icicle.pdf

A successful launch of Iraqi Icicle was held at StrathPine Shire Council Library tonight (6 September 2007). Over 60 people were in attendance to hear the author, bush poet Long John Best, musicians – Ash and Nathan, entertain the audience with poetry, readings from the book, and live music (book original and cover songs). The launch was ably MC’d by John Watson.

You can read more about it in the Quest local paper.

Who is murdering the Novel?

All I can say is that it is passing strange that George W Bush has arrived in Australia on the eve of the launch of Bernie Dowling’s first novel Iraqi Icicle.Come and see the coffins, the boffins, the bodies and lots more at the:

Book Launch of Brisbane’s own Crime Thriller

at the Strathpine Library

Corner South Pine and Gympie Roads Strathpine Q 4500

on Thursday 6pm 6 September 2007

QUEENSLAND journalist Bernie Dowling launches his first novel, the detective thriller Iraqi Icicle at Strathpine Library on September 6.

Dowling said writing a novel, while working full-time, required persistence.

“I had written a short story collection and a short history of the Pine Rivers show but a 400-page novel is more daunting,’’ Dowling said.

He said writing the first draft was the easy part and making the many revisions the difficult task.

“I guess I tried the patience of my wife Trish and son Kevin with all the time I spent at the computer.”

Iraqi Icicle is a detective thriller set in and around Brisbane from 1986 to 1992.

Dowling sees the period as an extraordinary time in Australian and world history.“We had the explosion of personal computers and mobile phones in Australia as well as the recession of 1990-91.”“In Queensland, we had the Fitzgerald inquiry into police corruption and the fall of the long-serving Joh Bjelke-Petersen government.

“Overseas, the internet started, the US invaded Panama to arrest its president Manuel Noriega, and America and its allies prosecuted the first Iraq War.”

These international and national events invade the blackly humorous novel, Iraqi Icicle which introduces young orphan gambler Steele Hill as the unlikely “detective”.

“I am interested in how popular culture, such as music, film, television, theatre, the internet, gambling and even drug use, intersects with mega social events.”

Dowling said his novel was, in other respects, a typical plot-driven detective yarn with a darkly humorous edge, a femme fatale, a healthy body count, crooked officialdom and eccentric minor characters.He has two Steele Hill sequels “in my head”.

News photographer Russell Brown shot the novel’s cover image.

Iraqi Icicle is available from www.digitalprintaustralia.com www.Amazon.com www.Abebooks.com www.Alibris.com and www.Borders.com

Dowling will launch Iraqi Icicle at Strathpine Library from 6pm on Thursday, September 6. Admission is free.