Crime and Thriller Books by Author Tim Ayliffe
Adult Thrillers
Dark Desert Road
Book #1 Kit McCarthy Thriller Series
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A fugitive sister. A dangerous father. A terror cell hiding in plain sight.
Kit McCarthy hasn't seen her identical twin sister, Billie, in more than a decade.
The sisters don't see eye to eye, which is understandable, considering Kit's a police officer and Billie followed their violent father into a life of crime.
Kit is no angel. Burnt out by years working in child protection, she has been accused of using excessive force in the arrest of a violent drunk. Kit has just been ordered to take time off work when she gets a frantic message from Billie, telling her she has a young son and that somebody is trying to kill her.
And then Billie disappears.
Determined to find her estranged sister, Kit's only lead comes after visiting their father in prison. Malcolm McCarthy claims Billie married a former United States Marine and has been living with a group of sovereign citizens in the desert country of the New South Wales Riverina.
Kit's journey to find Billie takes her through shuttered towns destroyed by drought, where everybody owns guns, nobody talks to cops, and people get lost for a reason.
Out here, a war is brewing between a ruthless bikie gang and a separatist community that is re-engaging with society in the most violent way.
Kit will risk everything to find her sister and the nephew she never knew she had.
But does Billie really want to be saved?
AU Pub Date: 6 January 2026
Genre: Crime/Thriller Fiction
Publisher: Bonnier Echo
The Wrong Man
Book #5 John Bailey Thriller Series
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Bailey is trying to solve two murders, ten years apart – unfinished business from his former flame Sharon Dexter. But will it cost him his life?
⌲ Set to be adapted for the screen
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.
AU Pub Date: 3 July 2024
Genre: Crime/Thriller, Psychological/Political Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
Killer Traitor Spy
Book #4 John Bailey Thriller Series
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An old war has a new battleground
⌲ Set to be adapted for the screen
⌲ Winner, 2024 Danger Awards, People's Choice Award
⌲ Shortlisted, 2024 Ned Kelly Awards, Best Crime Fiction
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.
From Canberra to Moscow to Beijing, Killer Traitor Spy uncovers the new lines of espionage in the twenty-first century. It proclaims Ayliffe as a master of the genre.
AU Pub Date: 31 July 2024
Genre: Crime/Thriller, Suspense/Political Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
The Enemy Within
Book #3 John Bailey Thriller Series
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He heard a voice, someone calling out in the distance, followed by a loud fluttering of birds. Bailey looked up just in time to see a body falling from the sky ...
⌲ Set to be adapted for the screen
⌲ 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 the 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.
An enemy who thought they were untouchable. Until now …
AU Pub Date: 7 June 2023
Genre: Crime/Thriller, Suspense/Political Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
State of Fear
Book #2 John Bailey Thriller Series
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Catching the world's most wanted terrorist was supposed to be someone else's job...
⌲ Set to be adapted for the screen
John Bailey has a history of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The former war correspondent has been kidnapped and tortured – twice. 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 – No.1 on the FBI’s most wanted list – and the man who tortured Bailey in Fallujah a decade ago.
Mustafa has a deadly axe to grind with Bailey. He taunts him with threats of more attacks in other cities, closer to home. 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 deadly terrorist.
AU Pub Date: 7 July 2021
Genre: Crime/Thriller, Suspense/Political Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
The Greater Good
Book #1 John Bailey Thriller Series
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There’s nothing more dangerous than a man who can fall no further …
⌲ Set to be adapted for the screen
He had never killed anyone who hadn’t deserved it. The end always justified the means. He didn’t need forgiveness. He needed justification. The greater good.
Battered war correspondent John Bailey is a man living on the edge. He’s haunted by nightmares of being kidnapped and tortured in Iraq and he’s drinking too much to drown the memories. As he battles to get his life back together, a story breaks that will force him back into the spotlight – and into the crosshairs of a deadly international player.
When a beautiful prostitute is found murdered in her luxury apartment, Bailey is ordered to cover the story by The Journal’s editor and his old friend, Gerald Summers, because he can’t trust anyone else.
One of the victim’s clients, a key advisor to the Defence Minister, is the chief suspect in her murder, and he’s on the run. When he contacts Bailey, claiming to have information that will bring down the government, the stakes become deadly. 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 may not live to tell.
AU Pub Date: 1 February 2020
Genre: Crime/Thriller, Suspense/Political Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
Kids’ Thrillers
S.I.G.M.A. 1: Web of Spies
Book #1 S.I.G.M.A. Spy Series
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From bestselling author Tim Ayliffe comes a children's debut that will have you on the edge of your seat
When Ollie heads out for a run in the park, the last thing he expects to find is a dead body. But the real shock is that Ollie recognises the man. And somehow, he's connected to Ollie's father ... who vanished ten months ago.
And then he learns that the dead man was a spy.
With everything he thought he knew about his dad now in doubt, there's only one way for Ollie to get answers. He's going to have to solve the murder.
Armed with an old spy kit, a couple of bikes and a drone, Ollie and his friends Ella and George are about to step into a world that is more dangerous than they could ever have imagined ...
AU Pub Date: 1 September 2026
Genre: Action/Adventure Fiction
Ages: 10 - 14
Publisher: Affirm Press - Affirm Kids
Tim Ayliffe Books in Order
Book #1 John Bailey
Book #2 John Bailey
Book #3 John Bailey
Book #4 John Bailey
Book #5 John Bailey
Book #1 Kit McCarthy Thriller Series
Book #1 S.I.G.M.A. Spy Series