The Courier's New Bicycle by Kim Westwood

Operating below the radar of Neighbourly Watch and outside the Morality provisions, it’s also a neutral territory where the Nation First party’s Back 2 Nature laws hold no sway and all judgement over what constitutes as natural, gender-wise, has been permanently suspended. A smorgasbord of contraband is traded and variety of services swapped in its subterranean spaces, the entrepreneurial spirit flourishing among its denizens. It’s too early yet for the abandon that will put its cluster of silver poles to inventive use. Ahead of me, broad-backed couches are grouped in protective huddles around the empty dance floor. The room is large and the lighting dim beneath the smoke I smell sweat and alcohol and hormones. It probably does.ĭownstairs, the air is laced with an aromatic smoke - the Genetically Modified kind that doesn’t give you cancer … or so its distributors claim. Marlene takes my stuff by her finger ends as if it pongs. I hand over my helmet and cycling jacket to the cloakroom attendant, a busty glamour puss with eyelashes to die for. ‘When I win at church bingo,’ I say, too polite to mention that Rosie’s ecotech ‘real bike’ sounds more like a sewing machine than a Harley. She’s the proud owner of a shiny electric speedster - a Harley replica - parked out in the alley. Rosie, the doorkeeper, complete with leather vest, two armfuls of tatts and a nose ring suitable for a bullock, secures my bike behind her guard stool and drawls, ‘When ya gonna get a real one, Sal?’ The eye at the peephole withdraws and the lock snicks back. The Glory Hole speakeasy is a door in a wall down Wickerslack Alley in the capillary-like heart of the city. “Hi, I’m Kim Westwood, and today I’m reading an excerpt from my novel, just published, called The Courier’s New Bicycle. Click on the arrow above to listen to Kim’s reading. Praise for Kim Westwood: 'a stylist, with a line in lyricism, and a nice sense of humour.

Salisbury must find whoever is trying to destroy the business before everything goes belly up. then someone starts trading tainted hormones on the boss's patch. Vigilantes prowl for transgressors while the pious gather like moths under the streetlights at dusk. A vaccine dispensed Australia-wide is causing mass infertility, and the government has banned all remedies except prayer. Salisbury Forth is a courier of contraband in the alleyways of inner Melbourne, a city of fuel rationing, rolling power outages and curfews. Ī beautifully written story of the near future and its murky underworld.

A beautifully written story of the near-future and its murky underworld.

The Courier's New Bicycle by Kim Westwood