Award-winning Brisbane novelist and journalist Matthew Condon has launched the second book of his trilogy of police corruption.
Jacks and Jokers, the sequel to Condon’s best-selling novel Three Crooked King, published by The University of Queensland Press, was released this week.
The Weekend Australian has described the book as a “fascinating account of the corruption and the power struggles within the Queensland Police”.
Three Crooked Kings told the story of how Queensland was shaped by almost half a century of corruption.
Jacks and Jokers continues that story, with Terry Lewis as Police Commissioner in an era of continuing corruption at the highest levels of the police and government.
It introduces new characters and portrays more extraordinary unlawful behaviour by the law.
It charts the meteoric rise of Terry Lewis and documents events up until the Fitzgerald Inquiry in the late 1980s.
Condon has drawn from unprecedented access to Terry Lewis, as well as hundreds of interviews with key players and conspirators to craft a definitive account of the rise and spectacular fall of one man, an entire state and more than a generation of corruption.
The final installment of the trilogy, All Fall Down, is due for release in late 2014 or early 2015.
Condon is on staff with The Courier-Mail’s Qweekend magazine.
He began his journalism career with the Gold Coast Bulletin in 1982 and has worked for newspapers and journals including the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph and Melbourne's Sunday Age.
He is the author of 10 books of fiction, most recently The Trout Opera (Random House, 2008), and the non-fiction book Brisbane (New South Books, 2010).
Media: UQ Press Bettina Richter, 0414 441 860 and bettina@missbettinamedia.com.au
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