Stealth Revenge

A poor but talented beauty, Grace Laverty, abused by her brother, is offered up to her brother's drunken mates on her thirteenth birthday. She escapes to her mother's workplace, a nearby hospital. There she is abused by two juvenile delinquents when a negligent nurse's aide locks her up. Bewildered, hurt, overwhelmed, and desperate to get away and flee the state, Grace staggers to the roadside. She is picked up by a kind truck driver. They cross the state border from Queensland to New South Wales and reach Sydney. Cast into the unknown, she is confronted with apparent insurmountable challenges. Will she survive?

Grace changes her name: Penny Peacock is invented. Penny lies to survive, and she must find a means to subsist, attend school, and pursue her acting, singing, and dancing. She strives to cope with the obstacles, treacheries, and dangers of life in a large city. Daily she struggles to manage her PTSD, to find her own identity, and to survive the odds stacked against her. She volunteers at Rape Crisis Centers, displaying her talents to entertain and help other abused victims. She must also live with two additional challenges: a phenomenal memory and a secret biological idiosyncrasy. Can she transform these two 'curses' into blessings?

Penny has success role-playing on stage and her acting skills help her get by socially. But she has little success overcoming her mental and emotional scars and cannot disclose her awful secrets and shame to anybody until she befriends another rape victim, Jennifer Fremd. Jennifer commits herself to intense martial arts, Jeet Kune Do, to overcome her PTSD and to prepare for retribution against her rapist. That rapist turns out to be Penny's brother, Lou Laverty, now a detective sergeant and a corrupt cop. Laverty has raped others and runs several profitable rackets including intimidation and extortion, illegal gambling, and prostitution. Jennifer's father, a chief inspector, struggles to fight police corruption in his department and elsewhere, and he fails to nail Jennifer's rapist.

Penny and Jennifer become intimate. Ready for change and reinvention, they achieve a new level of liberation, of empowerment, and of freedom from conventional thinking. A paradigm shift for both. Separately, they learn that the justice system fails far too many victims of crime and they analyze alternative paths to justice. Jennifer undertakes an undergraduate law degree, observes her dad's efforts, and does much research. Penny meets with Aborigines and learns about alternative forms of Aboriginal justice. Together they devise an unconventional, concerted plan to rectify injustices experienced and observed: they plan a lure to trap the rapist and bent cop.

An unexpected opportunity suddenly presents itself when a death threat made against Lou Laverty in Brisbane by a leading Mafia head, Tony Malelli, is published in newspapers Australia-wide. But Penny lives in Sydney, a distance of almost 600 miles by road from Brisbane. It appears their concerted action against Laverty is doomed, and there is an apparent communication failure. "The best laid plans of mice and men can still go wrong!" Will they ever bring Laverty to justice? Will Penny ever be free to return to her home state? Will she ever avenge her heinous abuse, find justice and peace of mind?

Michael relishes the creative process and writes with originality as he illustrates the human condition in all its great variety. He delves deep into the psychological motives, moods, and ambitions of his characters and the often-unintended consequences of their actions. His writing demonstrates a natural Irish story-telling ability.