It's not often that we link to interviews with unpublished authors. And it's not because we don't want to, it's just that there generally aren't any out there. Kathleen Noonan has changed that with an interview with Queensland author Frank Burkett, for "The Courier-Mail". Burkett has written a crime novel, A View from the Clock Tower, which has been chosen from 700 entries from around the world to appear on the shortlist for the Debut Dagger Award from the Crime Writers Association of the United Kingdom.
Burkett's novel follows a young man, Jack Bellamy, in his search for the truth behind his parents' mysterious murder-suicide in Moreton Bay. It takes him from an orphanage in Nudgee to the sugar paddocks around Mackay, where he explores family secrets and digs up the truth.
[snip]
Burkett, 58, started A View From the Clock Tower in 2007. During a week off work, he headed to a beach house with his computer and dogs and punched out the first draft. On retiring last year, he finished it.
"I thought, 'What next?' I contacted the Queensland Writers Centre and then a little crime-writing group in Brisbane.
"Someone there said, 'You have a week before deadline to enter it in these awards in London'." He sent off a synopsis and first chapter and forgot about it.
Six weeks later a letter arrived from Britain, announcing his nomination.
No word yet on when the novel wil be published.
