The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 124

OS(S SLIGO'S SECRET S3? GRACE BROS City Store WM mm 1 111 EADING Australian novel-II ist John Sligo has sud-II denly become very cagey. VThe award-winning ney-based writer has dashed ofTa detective novel, but won't give away the plot. has also formulated a pseudonym with its own twist. You may find a clue to the origins of the pen name in his other new novel. The Faces of Sappho, due out next year.

But first things first. On July 3, Penguin Books will release Whatever Happened To Rosie Quinn? by Tom Beauford, alias Sligo. The novel introduces the upmarket, slightly bohemian former lawyer turned private detective, Sophie Parncll. expect the cloak-and-dagger stuff of Raymond Chandler, or the gritty locales of Peter Corn's' Cliff Hardy. Sligo will only admit to ai middle ground somewhere between Chandler and Agatha Christie, in a "different" Sydney.

And what does happen to Rosie Quinn? Cagey Sligo elaborates on the plot, slightly: "It's set in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, it goes to Thailand, to Kings Cross and has something to do with the disappearance of this girl. I'm not going to tell you how it ends but it has a SligoBeauford, aged "in his early took four to five months to complete the manuscript. He views his detective works as "fun'Y and said the writing of Quinn was a break from more serious literary endeavours. "It's a different style and a real breati from the other type of writing," he said. "I enjoy a good light read myself.

It certainly doesn't help or hinder my serious writing. "One can't always be wallowing in the soul." thriller is not foreign territory to him either. Six years ago he released The Concert Masters, which fitted into the same genre. His most successful novel. Final Things, however, stamped Sligo as one of our leading exponents of serious fiction.

Last year, it was awarded the NSW Premier's Literary Award. And 77ie Faces of Sappho, to be released by Penguin at the prestige Adelaide Writer's Festival early next year, will prove to be his most ambitious work to date. NEXT TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY AND WED. OF THE FOLLOWING WEEK TO GJCJLS TIME mvs THEY'LL GIVE YOU YOUR LUCKY NUMBER ON A SPECIAL LEAFLET To discover if you've won. check your number on the same day between 11 a.m.

and 2 p.m., 5th Floor, City store. Even if your number hasn't come up you still have a chance drop your entry form into the Second Chance Draw and if the prize isn't claimed you could be S1000 richer. AND THAT'S NOT ALL FIND 10 RED HOT SPECIALS TOO GOOD TO MISS! BEN ELTON book The Power of One, and Australian poet Gig Ryan. The following week, June 20, sees the launch of Night Swim, a new collection of poetry by Polish-Australian author Peter Skzry-necki. Opposition Leader Bob Carr will be doing the honours.

The launch is at 6.30pm and there will be a special series of readings for International Refugee Week, with Thomas Keneally heading a multicultural cast. A PENGUIN BOOKSaresetto re-issue all of writer David Maloufs novels next month. The re-issue will see a uniform edition of his critically acclaimed works, including the classic Johnno. Fly Away Peter. Child's Play.

Harland's Half Acre and the short story collection Antipodes. Malouf fans can expect his new novel. The Great World, early next year. DAVID MALOUF Smoking and drinking tea in his Paddington flat, SligoBeauford appears reluctant to abandon the intriguing Sophie Parnell. "I like the idea of the female detective," Sligo said.

"Depending on how the public likes the book, 1 hope to write one every year or so." A THIS Tuesday, Sydneysiders have a chance to see British stand-up comedian Ben Elton reading from his book Stark set in Western Australia. Just released here. Stark shot to number one in Britain's best seller-charts. The occasion is this week's session of Writers in the Park, the popular author readings at the Harold Park Hotel in Glebe. It starts at 8pm.

Also due to appear are South African-born Bryce Courtenay, the advertising executive who netted a cool SI million advance for his the collection from correspondence and other sources, with the approval of Buckmaster's family. The result is an outstanding body of work for one who died so young. Here is the resonance of the Australian bush and the sea, and a passionate history of his birthplace, the orchard valley of Gruyere in Victoria. Here too is the poet's fear of stifling in suburbia, his hatred of hypocrisy and all the angst of his generation the generation of the Poets rises out of the dark Vietnam war and the Prague Spring. In his last three years, Buckmaster suffered severe depression, periods in psychiatric hospitals and disastrous bouts of drug-taking.

Yet for all the blackness, there is much that celebrates life in his poems. "I can't be saddened now," he writes in one of them. This volume allows us to marvel at the stormy, meteoric burst of talent his poems represent. COLLECTED POEMS By Charles Buckmaster, University of Queensland Press, $16.95. CHARLES Buckmaster was the most extraordinary of Australia's "new poets" of the 1960s.

He committed suicide in 1972 at the age of 21, destroying all his manuscripts. Only 45 poems had been published. Now his friend and fellow poet, Simon MacDonald, has enlarged ATTENTION ALL LIQUOR TRADES UNION MEMBERS The Pat Reeves Unity Team is totally committed to the retention of penalty rate provisions and conditions. ANY STATEMENTS TO THE CONTRARY ARE NOTHING BUT LIES Support The Pat Reeves Unity Team AND KEEP POLITICS OUT OF OUR UNION Authorised by Pat Reeves THE SUN-HERALD, June II, 127.