The latest gay-ebooks novel, Stinga, is a compelling detective story set in North Queensland. Alistair Sutton speaks with its author, David della Sabbia.

A man in uniform is always an evocative image and the protagonist of David della Sabbia’s online novel Stinga pushes all the buttons. Detective Steven ‘Stinga’ Miles is dark and handsome with a raw sexuality and barely concealed anger which makes for a heady mix. Circumstances thrust him into a complex investigation of an apparent suicide in a remote sugar cane growing district in North Queensland. Abrasive and aloof from his colleagues in the force, Stinga is confronted with an intriguing mix of murder, sex, blackmail and corruption.

Stinga uncovers the strange disappearances of young men over a period of years. The question of their fate is successfully blended by Sabbia with a romantic subplot where Stinga undergoes a personal journey as he reconnects with his past and starts to build a possible future for himself. A chance encounter on a deserted beach with a friendly local, Warwick Hughes or ‘Wozza’, calls into question Stinga’s view of his sexuality.

The growing attraction between the two men is skilfully handled by Sabbia who explores their insecurities in a sensitive and realistic manner. Their soul searching and questioning of what it means to be a man rings true if you think how assumptions of manhood and mateship are constantly being redefined in contemporary culture. There are also plenty of plot twists to keep even the most avid reader of detective fiction guessing. I asked Sabbia why he chose this genre to work in.

“The intention of writing the book was to do a crime fiction novel, and secondly to build it around gay characters,” he replies. “I also wanted to reflect on an Australian landscape and experience. We, as Australian men, are quite different from men in other countries. Our humour and sardonic nature moulds who and what we are. I never get that in gay fiction from other countries. I just wanted to try to inject some of ‘us’ into the book.”

The sex scenes in Stinga avoid the clichés that all too many writers of any sexual persuasion fall so easily into using.

“Obviously we can only really know our own sex lives and the way that other men interact with us intimately, and this can be a challenge especially when writing about sex between two men when the personal pronouns are not enough to differentiate between them. You write and hope to God that the reader is able to follow who is doing what to whom and how.”

Stinga is a fast-paced ‘whodunnit’ with a healthy dose of gay male content, and the download figures from gay-ebooks show that it is already proving popular with its readers. Like all the stories on www.gay-ebooks.com.au the PDF of Stinga is free.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed