Booksology I enjoyed Dark Desert Road by Tim Ayliffe much more than I expected. I’d worried a little it would be centred around ‘preppers’, ‘cookers’ or conspiracy theorists and get bogged down in their beliefs and actions, and though it is a little, it’s not the focus of the book. Rather it’s more a game of cat and mouse as a young woman tries to avoid a death sentence after seeing something she shouldn’t. What I very much liked about this (in addition to proverbial heart-pumping action) is that Ayliffe paints his characters in shades of grey. Police officer Kit is struggling with simmering anger and PTSD following a long stint dealing with child pornography rings and Billie is a mother devoted to her toddler, but at the same time been swept away by hard-core beliefs in god and antigovernment propaganda. She is accepting of the murder of innocents though balks at the murder of children. Ayliffe gives us insight into her indoctrination which helps understand how she came to be the woman we meet here, but at the same time we feel entitled to judge her (and her companions at ‘Fortitude’) somewhat harshly.
Dark Desert Road by Tim Ayliffe Published by Echo on 06/01/2026 Source: Echo Publishing Genres: Crime Fiction ISBN: 1786587211 Pages: 400 Goodreads
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.
Ayliffe also adds lots of layers of complexity here. Against his better judgement, leader of Fortitude and husband to Billie, Danny-Lee has partnered with a bikie gang and it’s this decision that leads to the unravelling of everything they’ve built. When Billie discovers future plans bikie leader Razor threatens her (and tries to rape her). Billie is forced to go on the run without son Ollie, confident Danny-Lee will protect him. Meanwhile Razor concocts an elaborate story of Billie being kidnapped so Danny-Lee and his followers are after the perpetrator/s, desperate to save her and seek vengeance on her kidnapper/s. Again the characters’ shades of grey are evident, Danny-Lee and his colleagues are indifferent in the targeting of victims for their bombs but care deeply about saving Billie.
Kit’s horrified to think her twin could be caught up in the bombings she’s seeing on the news but once she knows she’s got a nephew who’s at risk, gets embroiled in the drama, despite not having seen or heard from her twin for over a decade. I liked the way Ayliffe introduces the backstory of Kit and Billie’s childhoods and the fact Kit’s forced to revisit that now. Because we’re in both Kit and Billie’s heads we’re privy to their thought patterns – the legacy from the childhoods, but also how they’ve evolved (very differently) as adults.
This is brilliantly paced, a slightly slower build-up and then once the action kicks off it picks up and becomes very literally a race against time with the sisters reminded of the bond they once shared. I loved where Ayliffe takes this and the way in which threads converge in an excellent climax. I’m not usually a huge fan of ‘action’ type scenes but this was edge-of-your-seat type of stuff as we’d become invested in the outcome and Ayliffe certain delivers on that. This was an excellent start to my 2026 reading!
Dark Desert Road by Tim Ayliffe was published in early January 2026 by Echo Publishing.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
