Beirut - An Explosive Thriller. Launched.

Dubai (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dubai's not really the kind of place you'd expect to find an apres-ski joint, but sure enough, funky evening spot Apres overlooks the indoor ski slope crowning that most packed of shopping malls, the Mall of the Emirates.

I can never go there without thinking of Louis, the small child in Sarah's class whose hand shot up as the class was naming the seven emirates of the UAE, claiming to know an eighth emirate. Puzzled, Sarah duly fell for it and asked what the eighth emirate might be. "Mall of the Emirates!" Louis pronounced with pride.

So Apres was where we ended up after the launch of Beirut - An Explosive Thriller. Welcomed with a glass of bubbly laid on  by the nice chaps there, we stayed chatting and drinking until well past our bedtime. Earlier, I had been helped to launch Beirut by a stellar cast - poet Frank Dullaghan took us to Gerald Lynch's Irish boyhood, rapper Jibberish took a car chase through Chatila and turned it into a rap, which was pretty cool, to be honest; actress Dana Dajani introduced us to smoky siren Marcelle Aboud (ably helped by Frank with the Irish accompaniment) and orator Kevin Simpson replayed Michel Freij's great speech in Martyr's Square. Enjoyed by the audience, the performances were a revelation to me - it's odd to hear your words re-interpreted, acted and declaimed in those different voices.

Mr Siju and the nice chaps from Jashanmal's laid on the support, Apres laid on the bubbles and many people kindly came along and laid on their support, which was wonderful. Books were duly sold and signed and that, as they say, was that.

So now Beirut - An Explosive Thriller has been launched, you can go here and buy a print copy or ebook anywhere in the world, but in the UAE you can now go to any Jashanmals or Spinneys bookshop and get your very own print copy. In the coming couple of weeks, other bookstores will also be ordering and stocking Beirut. Which is nice.