The Wrong Man
by Tim Ayliffe
Simon & Schuster
Alec Blacksmith is a millionaire property developer and ex-mercenary soldier. He had also featured in reality television programs where he met women with spray tans and swollen lips.
It was at his “exclusive pocket of suburban paradise” that his girlfriend, socialite Tottie Evans, was the victim of a violent crime. She was found posed beside the pool of the Palm Beach mansion like some sort of gruesome mannequin.
Detective Holly Sutton knows that most domestic violence crimes are committed by the partner, but Blacksmith seems to have an alibi and is refusing to cooperate with police. When a picture of the tied-up body is posted on Evans’ Instagram account, the options for motives become very disturbing.
At the same time, old-school reporter John Bailey gets called out to a break-in where he unearths an old case file belonging to former girlfriend and detective Sharon Dexter. He believes that the murder is connected to an unsolved case from ten years ago that has haunted him.
When Bailey tries to convince Detective Sutton that the cases are connected, there is the problem that a serial killer is already serving time for Sharon Dexter’s murder at the men-only Sydney Club. Reporter Annie Brooks is the connection between Bailey and Sutton’s investigation as she had a brief dalliance with Blacksmith and is now in the company of Bailey.
There is a tense, convoluted path to the prologue where John Bailey and Annie Brooks are chained and handcuffed on the deck of a boat in the middle of the night, in the middle of the ocean. With them is a guy with a gun.
After a 25 year career as a journalist, Tim Ayliffe says that everything on his books either “has happened, will happen, or could happen”. He takes the reader into the Australian underworld where extremist groups share misogynist hate and promote violence against women.
Lezly Herbert
