COLIN STEELE reviews two new books by Australian authors that take their inspiration from dark themes.

The latest novels by Australian authors Tim Ayliffe and Ashley Kalagian Blunt reflect darker elements of our contemporary world.

Ayliffe was a journalist for 25 years, including managing editor of Television and Video for ABC News and the former executive producer of News Breakfast.

He puts that news background to good effect in his latest novel Dark Desert Road (Echo Publishing, $34.99), noting help from authorities in “tracing the links between global extremist groups, and how they recruit vulnerable people to violent causes”. 

Ayliffe’s main character is a 29-year-old female detective Kit McCarthy, who, like many of her crime fictional counterparts, has a troubled back story.

Her violent, extremist father is in Goulburn jail for murder, her abused mother is on drugs and her estranged twin sister, Billie, whom she has not seen for over a decade, is living with her American war-veteran husband, Danny-Lee, in a small militant group of sovereign citizens in a remote part of the NSW Riverina.

Kit, burnt out from a successful undercover, dark web, child exploitation investigation, immediately embarks on a desperate quest to find Billie, now on the run through rural NSW from the leader of the Street Kings, a drug-running bikie gang, who had earlier tried to rape her.

Ayliffe captures the desperation and poverty of the drought-stricken small towns where Billie seeks refuge, not realising that the regional police sergeant is in the pay of the bikie gang.

Meanwhile, the sovereign citizen group is launching murderous attacks on judges and MPs in Sydney and Melbourne. They see themselves as, “the only ones brave enough to do something”, saving “the world that God built for us… People will never understand what it means to be a soldier of the Cross”.

Ayliffe ramps up the tension as the two sides of the narrative come together through the stories of Kit and Billie.

Kit’s search for her sister becomes a race against time and a reckoning with their past before the inevitable violent denouement. Dark Desert Road is a fast-moving, compulsive thriller that juxtaposes extremist convictions and family love.

ASHLEY Kalagian Blunt’s, Like, Follow, Die (Ultimo Press, $34.95) is a dark psychological thriller, with similarities to the recent British award-winning TV drama Adolescence and the toxic internet radicalisation of young men.

Single mother Corinne Gray becomes ”the most hated woman in Australia” after her 19-year-old son, Ben commits an unthinkable violent act in Sydney.

Corinne tracks back on those who influenced her son Ben and seeks to reframe the media narrative. 

Ben’s changing viewpoint is seen in his diary entries, which document how a 12-year-old normal child is radicalised by the age of 19 by male influencers, “promoting their ideology through algorithms on Instagram, Tik-Tok and You-Tube” .

Australian-Armenian probationary detective Kyle Nazarian provides the third perspective as he investigates, with his grizzled, unsympathetic boss, two gruesome murders in Sydney’s Vaucluse. The victims have been mutilated but with clues intentionally left behind by the killer. The murders slowly intertwine with the main characters. 

Kyle must decide how far he’s willing to go in the pursuit of justice, particularly when his career might be on the line. Blunt brings it all together in a remarkable conclusion with a final dramatic twist.

Claudia Karvan, who plays Corinne, in the Audible recording has said, “Like, Follow, Die is not only a story about the dark side of the web. It’s also about the unwavering strength of a mother’s love… Her son had been drawn into something dark online. He kept it hidden, and no one saw it”.

Blunt, in her author’s notes, reflects that, for many people drawn into extremist thinking, “membership in the group and its ideology offers a way of coping with their own wounds and perceived injustices. This is what I wanted to explore through the character of Benjamin Gray.

“If we want to address crime and violence, we need to look beyond the individual, to the culture around them. We can choose to hold people accountable for their actions while also considering the broader social forces that may have contributed to those actions now play a role in shaping them”.

Like, Follow, Die presents a mirror to contemporary life. It’s not just a cautionary tale, it’s a forensic examination of how misogynistic internet influencers inflict psychological and social harm.