About 60 writers, artists, musicians and other invited guests enjoyed hearing excerpts and talks about Mr Cole's psychological crime thriller Eyes of Madness in the Thomas L. Brown Gallery, Speargrass Flat, last week.
The published book, a labour of love, has been kept secret from almost everyone since January last year.
Mr Cole's father-in-law's experiences as a Romanian teenager during World War 2 prompted research which the author combined with his own recollections of Australia in the tumultuous 1970s.
He said he allowed the characters and plot to develop in his mind for months to maintain the momentum of the story when he settled down at the keyboard.
An early manuscript of the book was sent to literary critic Tom Flood for assessment. The Sydney writer is a winner of the Miles Franklin Award, the Australian Vogel Award and is a judge for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award.
It was Mr Flood who reviewed the manuscript, wrote notes and made the Larsson connection.
''His opening line was, `This is very good, David, but I think you know that','' Mr Cole said, laughing, last week.
Eyes of Madness stars Kathryn Novak, a brilliant but troubled Canadian prosecutor who attempts to start a new life in Sydney in 1975.
However, the death of her unknown mother leads to an unearthing of her past, the truth about a brutal Allied war crime and an avalanche of terrifying consequences.
Eyes of Madness, by David Cole, costs $32.95 from Dorothy Brown's Cinema, Arrowtown, and is downloadable from Amazon online.
