Author | Tim Ayliffe

OUT NOW

When Sydney socialite Tottie Evans is found dead at a

house in Palm Beach, Detective Holly Sutton is called in to investigate. She immediately suspects the boyfriend,a millionaire property developer and ex-mercenary soldier, who refuses to cooperate with police.

Across the city, old-school reporter John Bailey – still

haunted by the death of his girlfriend, former cop

Sharon Dexter – gets a call about a break-in. It leads to the unearthing of an old case file on a murder at the men-only Sydney Club that Dexter had been pursuing a decade earlier. Her notes reveal a link between that murder and the killing of Tottie Evans.

Suddenly, John Bailey and Holly Sutton have the same mission. And for Bailey, this is a chance to finish a job for the woman who saved his life.

The only problem: a serial killer is already serving a life sentence for the Sydney Club murder.

SHOP

WINNER People's Choice Award - BAD 2024 Danger Awards

Shortlisted for the 2024 Danger Prize

Shortlisted for the 2024 Ned Kelly Awards

Someone wants Russian millionaire Dmitry Lebedev dead. After years flying under the radar in Sydney, he’s just had a narrow escape when a sex worker is poisoned in his hotel room. In desperation he contacts his former CIA case officer, Ronnie Johnson, offering to expose a traitor inside the Australian government in return for protection.

John Bailey has spent decades risking his life to break news stories. Along the way he’s made some interesting friends, including Ronnie — who saved his life in Iraq — and Scarlett Merriman, whose night with Lebedev left her in a coma. And now they both need Bailey's help.

While Bailey investigates what happened to Scarlett,
Ronnie Johnson is calling in an old debt. Because the same people going after Lebedev have framed Ronnie for murder.

SHOP

Shortlisted for the 2022 Danger Prize
Shortlisted for the 2022 Ned Kelly Award

Investigative journalist John Bailey is doing his best to turn his life around after losing the woman he loved. He has a new job. He’s given up the drink. He even has a dog.

But then Federal Police raid his home with a warrant granting them unprecedented powers to take anything they want, including all his electronic devices and passwords. When Bailey protests, they threaten to put him in a prison cell.

Someone wants to stop Bailey doing what he does best – exposing the truth. He has been investigating the rise of a global white supremacist group and suspects that a notorious neo-Nazi in the United States has been directing deadly racist attacks on Sydney’s streets.

When a body of one of his key sources washes up on a nearby beach, it’s clear Bailey and anyone helping him have become targets. Bailey reaches out to a ruthless old friend – CIA veteran, Ronnie Johnson – to lure the enemy from the shadows.

SHOP

Battered war correspondent John Bailey has a history of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Finally he’s living something that resembles a normal life. But all that changes when a terrorist murders a woman in front of Bailey in London.

The mastermind behind the attack is Mustafa al-Baghdadi – the terrorist leader who kidnapped and tortured Bailey in Fallujah a decade ago.

Mustafa is plotting more attacks and back in Sydney, the people who matter most to Bailey have become targets.

Bailey turns to the only man who can help – ruthless CIA veteran Ronnie Johnson – to bring down the world’s most wanted terrorist.

Sample Chapters

SHOP

When a sex worker is found murdered in a luxury Sydney apartment, John Bailey is ordered to cover the story by The Journal’s editor, who can’t trust anyone else.

The former war correspondent has barely worked in years. He’s been drinking himself to sleep to fight his nightmares of being kidnapped and tortured in Iraq.

One of the dead woman’s clients, an advisor to Australia’s Defence Minister, is chief suspect in her murder and he’s on the run. He contacts Bailey claiming that he has been set up to silence him over a conspiracy linked to China that could bring down the government.

To complicate matters, the investigating police detective is the woman Bailey walked out on a decade ago. When a ruthless CIA fixer turns up, followed by a murderous Chinese agent hot on his trail, Bailey realises he has stumbled onto the story of a lifetime – one that he might not live to tell.

Sample Chapters

SHOP