DeAnne Nicoloso’s Three Little Vikings, released this month, is the story of three old school friends who form an underground vigilante group to dish out punishment to child sex offenders who deny their wrongdoing.
Set in Nicoloso’s hometown of Dannevirke, it’s about the "very deep relationships between three little girls who’ve experienced trauma", she says.
"The book starts when they discover a hit they’ve put out has gone wrong, and an innocent person is in hospital almost dead."
It’s inspired by her experiences within the criminal justice system, not only in her work as a barrister and law lecturer, but as a complainant — both as a child and adult.
"It’s semi-autobiographical ... it’s a lot of significant parts of my life spread across three women, but the crime narrative is purely fictional."
Asked to place the novel in a genre, Nicoloso says it’s "contemporary dark fiction", with an element of mystery.
Nicoloso says she studied creative writing at university, but only had time to dabble with fiction as she pursued a demanding legal career while raising eight children.
Although ideas for the story percolated in her mind for two decades, often while sitting in courtrooms, it was only last year that she found an opportunity to write the book.
Giving up full-time work, she wrote most of it in five months while camping in Queensland and New South Wales with her husband and two of her children.
"I just got stuck in, and because I’d put so much thought into it, it wrote itself."
She decided early on she wouldn’t allow technique and style to dominate her process, although a friend helped her with structural editing .
"I wanted it to be really raw and authentic to myself."
The result is a novel she calls "darkly funny", but which she expects readers will find confronting.
"I want people to think about alternative ways we can deal with this very dark topic, which is not going away.
"Internet pornography and child porn is so prevalent, and it’s being driven even deeper underground.
"It’s not just about vengeance, it’s about thinking of creative ways to help men who have these predilections towards sexually assaulting children, so they can seek help."
Three Little Vikings ($34.95) is available at Paper Plus Queenstown Airport, Dorothy Browns cinema, and Amazon.
A book launch is being held at Dorothy Browns on September 25 at 5.30pm. Entry is free
