The book has been written by former Forbes woman Patricia Melville (nee Williams) and is entitled the War Quartet.

It is set in the fictional town of Amaroo, but from the opening pages locals will recognise the town as our very own Forbes.

Victoria Park, the Town Baths and Red Bend are all featured and the town plays a major role in the story of the book’s hero, Declan Dunn.

The book tells the story of Dunn, a young man who leaves the comforts of his father’s law firm to pursue a career and adventure in the world of journalism.

The book begins in the first rumblings of World War II when Mussolini invaded Abyssinia [now Ethiopia] in 1935. It covers the years leading up to and through until the end of war in 1945, taking readers to the “horrors of Spain during its Civil War, the nightmare of the London Blitz, the bloody bedlam of the desert battles of North Africa, the intrigues of Cairo and Casablanca, the agonising slog of the Kokoda Trial, the confines of Changi, and misery of the Burma-Thailand Railway, the fascinating world of code words, and finally the painful breathtaking spectacle of D-Day, Normandy and beyond”.

The War Quartet uses the medium of dispatches, articles and commentaries of war correspondents, including those of the protagonist Dunn, to tell the story of these events that shook the world.

Despite being a work of fiction, the War Quartet adheres as closely as possible to the history of these great events and Ms Meville spent more than a decade researching and writing the ambitious work.

The distinctively Australian and self-published book draws heavily on Ms Melville’s experience of growing up in Forbes during this turbulent decade and is available now from Nock's Newsagency and News on Rankin.

The book is also available on the website of the Australian War Memorial website.