BOOK LAUNCH
Thursday, 4 – 6 PM
28 February 2008
West End Library
Address:
178-180 Boundary Street
West End Q 4101
[Just next to the Pensioners League Building]
“QUEENSLAND journalist Bernie Dowling launches his first novel, the detective thriller Iraqi Icicle at West End Library on 28 February 2008.
The launch starts at 4 pm and features original songs and music from local band Jumping Fences back from their tour of Mexico and Cuba.
The book will be on sale for the discounted price of $30 and for the impecunious will be available for loan from the library.
For more details contact Ian Curr at BushTelegraph on 07 3398 5215
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”.
Video interview with author, Bernie Dowling, about his novel Iraqi Icicle can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/BushTelegraph