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Home / Events / Libraries / Online FrankTALK with Paul F. Verhoeven

Online FrankTALK with Paul F. Verhoeven

Frankston City Libraries

Event Date: 24 September 2020
Author / Presenters: Paul F. Verhoeven

‘Being a cop, doing forensics, high-speed chases. Coming across headless bodies. People on fire. Electrocutions. Necklaces made from severed penises. Cramming thermometers into dead people’s arses. All of that, absolutely all of it . . . is ten times easier than having kids.’ John Verhoeven

Electric Blue is part true crime thriller, part family story. It takes a deep dive into Paul Verhoeven’s relationship with his parents, John and Christine, who were both officers in the NSW Police force.

Electric Blue is a thrilling look at crime-solving in 1980s Sydney, told with Paul’s trademark gallows humour. At its heart, Electric Blue is ultimately a celebration of relationships, connections and family – the Verhoevens just happen to talk about murder around the dinner table more than most.

We first met John Verhoeven in Loose Units, when he spilled his guts about his experiences as a former cop to his son Paul, in an effort to open up and get to the bottom of the differences between them.

Its success led to Loose Units: The Podcast – a true crime podcast with over 2 million downloads that expanded on the stories told in the book. After three seasons of the podcast and sold out live shows, Paul is back with a new book about the next, and final, chapter in John Verhoeven’s law

Electric Blue sees John join the forensics department of the NSW Police force (before CSI introduced us to the world of analysis beyond fingerprinting), and some of his most memorable cases in this era.

Paul chats to his mother, Christine, gaining an insight into what it was like to be a female police officer in the 1980s, with misogyny and discrimination rife in the force.

Electric Blue looks heavily into the rhetorical question of ‘what if’. Paul forces his dad to imagine for the first time how a case of his might have been affected if he’d made some slightly different decisions along the way, such as his choice of shoes, if he had caught the rapist who was hiding in the shower wall and he had taken a bigger shovel to the crime scene.

Please join us for this FrankTALK with Paul Verhoeven on Thursday 24 September at 6pm via Zoom. Bookings are essential.

Paul’s books are available to borrow with you Frankston City Libraries membership on our digital library apps: https://bit.ly/3iC4YzB

Paul’s books are also available to purchase from Robinsons Bookshop here: https://bit.ly/35bxSDn

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