Author(s): Stephen Johnson

Biography & Memoir

What happens on tour stays on tour was the mantra for the southern hemisphere backpackers who swarmed Europe in the 1980s. Foreign countries had to be explored and devoured in every way possible.

Waikato-born Judy Williams worked hard for her big OE: London, Paris, Rome, Gallipoli; and her adventures were dutifully recorded in her diary.

A diary that also recorded how the obsessive Tugga Tancred and his Kiwi mates turned Judy's trip of a lifetime into a nightmare of sly sexual harassment. Their bad behaviour went unnoticed, or was ignored by fellow passengers like Australian Andrew Hackett who chose to party hard with Tugga's Mob. After all, they were in Europe for a good time, not a long time.

And what a time it was, until Tugga's fixation ultimately led to murder: a crime that went unpunished for 30 years.

But few things remain hidden forever. The rediscovery of Judy's hand-written diary sparks a trail of revenge that the original perpetrators never see coming.

'With... penetrating insights into the world of newsgathering, Tugga's Mob is the story of a forgotten crime that refuses to stay buried...' - Garry Disher