Pike's Pyramid. Michael Tatlow

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      Difficult circumstances in the wake of his father’s death caused Michael Tatlow to leave school aged fifteen in his native Tasmania, Australia. He earned a living trapping rabbits, snaring kangaroos, and fishing for shark in the Southern Ocean. He was also the state’s surf swimming champion. In rough seas at different beaches Michael saved alone four people from drowning.

      Aged eighteen he became an Australian newspaper reporter, then a journalist correspondent in Britain, the United States, Canada, Vietnam and much of Europe. A year as a feature writer for Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph followed.

      Aged twenty, a busted and infected spine cost him a year in hospital, during which time Michael twice received the last rites from a priest. Fully recovered, he became the Sunday Telegraph’s News Editor and Acting Editor, then the Chief of Staff and Pictorial Editor of the city’s Daily Telegraph.

      Back home in Tasmania in the 1970s, Michael was head of ABC television news and, rated as an historian, he began writing books. It was then that he became a leading network marketer whose sales trips included months in the Czech Republic.

      He lives in Hobart and has a son and daughter, and six grandchildren.

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      Michael is the author of the books Bloodhouse (with Darcy Dugan), A Walk in Old Sydney, A Tour of Old Tasmania, A Walk in Old Launceston, A Walk in Old Hobart.

      Author’s note

      This tale and the characters and organisations depicted are fiction. Any resemblance of fictional between fictional Argo and a real network marketing organisation is coincidental. However, the related locations of the story are real. The story’s acts of terrorism in America and Europe actually took place. Tatlow’s Beach, a murder scene at Stanley, Tasmania, is also real; named after my ancestors.

      In 2006 I self published and distributed a virtual draft of this book, with a limited plot, to test its popularity and get readers’ feedback. I limited the distribution to my home state of Tasmania. All the 2000 printed copies sold in three weeks. I told people still seeking the book to await a much enhanced Pike’s Pyramid, with more drama, per Jo Jo Publishing.

      This rewritten book is the first of my series of four crime thrillers that travels to many parts of the world and features hero and unique crime buster and family man Blarney Pike, and his skilled friends in a remote but extraordinary town in Tasmania.

      Acknowledgements

      Many people who generously told me about their experiences to make this book a reality cannot be named. They have my enduring gratitude. I particularly thank Colin S (formerly of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation), John MacKean, police Inspector Lee Renshaw, barristers Ken Read and Christopher Gunson, Helen Prochazka and Patti Lucas.

      CREDIT: The song Who Wants to be a Millionaire? by Cole Porter. Alfred Publishing Co. Inc. USA.