Kildare author’s Iraqi war novel

Kildare author Martin Malone this month launches ‘Valley Of The Peacock Angel’, a novel based on his experiences in Iraq while serving with the United Nations.

Mr Malone served as part of an Irish Military Police platoon deployed to oversee a tentative truce between Iraq and Iran in the late 1980s.

His novel is based on his experiences serving on the Iran/Iraq border at the time.

This included a patrol in a town called Halabja, where in March 1988, the Iraqui Army slaughtered and injured tens of thousands of Kurds in a chemical attack.

Mr Malone’s previous works include ‘The Broken Cedar’, nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; the novel ‘Us’; and The Mango War, a short story collection.