Thunder Down Under
A Washington Intern is Missing . . .
by
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The Laughing Kookaburra was a two-story brick haunt on tiny Orwell, off Macleay. It had the countenance of a trollop, sweet and nasty, with predictive, barred windows and a front door that didn’t quite fit. Inside, the worn wooden decor reminded those of a rowdy outback wool shed without the sheep dip. Thunder loved the place. It was like a second home to him, for when he wasn’t acting a copper he’d at times be a bouncer at the club for his good friend Tommy O’Malley, the club’s weathered old owner. Officer Tully was out front, shooing away the pre-dawn street gawkers. He watched the advancing Thunder Pearce, lumbering forward on grouchy knees that had borne one too many rugby matches, face a living testament to past transgressions. The young officer shook his head, chuckling into the badge on his uniform. "How ya goin’, Thunder?" "Don’t ask," his partner Geoff Leuck answered for him. "So what’s the drum, then?" Detective Pearce coughed toward the young officer. He was lighting up another Stuyvesant. Tully led them through the front door. The room was dark, a tangle of stale smoke and beer filling the air, reeking like Thunder’s clothes. "Eight assailants. They wore ski masks. Very quick, very professional. Burst in through the front door. Robbed the joint, and all the patrons. Then shot three patrons dead. Two men and a woman. In and out and they were gone." Tully bent to uncover the purple-stained cloth covering the woman. "Oh, yeah," added the young officer, "they chopped off the victims heads and hands and took them with them." "Time for a Tooheys," hoarsely declared Thunder, turning toward the bar.
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About the Book
When a young Washington D.C. intern suddenly disappears, no one – including the U.S. senator with whom she has been romantically linked – seems to know where she might have gone. And those who may know certainly aren’t talking. Suspicious of foul play from the beginning, the intern’s older sister, a no-nonsense LAPD cop, takes it upon herself to follow what little trail was left behind, a trail that takes her to Sydney, Australia, where a young American girl with no identity has been inexplicably murdered and dismembered in a grotty Kings Cross pub. Partnering with outlandish and politically incorrect Sydney Police Detective Thunder Pearce, the LAPD officer chases down leads that snake through the perilous innards of Sydney’s criminal underworld, eventually winding its way back to Washington’s hallowed halls of power and corruption. Along the way, the investigators encounter a host of unconventional characters – a young Chinese woman who runs a crime gang in Sydney’s Chinatown, a transvestite who is magic with switchblades, a smarmy attache in the U.S. Consulate’s office, and a transplanted wealthy South African who lives high on the cliffs of Rose Bay, where stucco walls hide a multitude of sin. To make matters worse, the detectives must fight not only the bad guys, but also some of Australia’s deadliest man-killers, including poisonous spiders and snakes, wild dogs and a predatory Great White shark.
About the Author
W.H. Mefford was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and is a journalism graduate of the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. A former news reporter, he is currently an award-winning marketing consultant specializing in the entertainment and special event fields. Thunder Down Under is his fourth book. He has also published Trump: 10 Years with the Bengals (non-fiction, Donning, 1979); Games of 80 (fiction, Belmont Tower, 1980), and The President’s Brother (fiction, Macdonald Futura Australia, 1985). Mr. Mefford, his wife Marnie and three children – Allyssa, Michael and Matthew – called Sydney, Australia home for four years before returning to the U.S.