BOOK REVIEW: The Greater Good by Tim Ayliffe

BOOK REVIEW: The Greater Good by Tim Ayliffe
Simon & Schuster
May 2018
Paperback, $29.99
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar

Political Thriller

8.5 /10

Introducing John Bailey, a man who drinks to deal with his past – which includes the trauma of a ten-month stint being tortured in Iraq after being kidnapped while there reporting on the war. The experience has left him damaged, almost as much as his relentless pursuit of the next news story – and running from the horrors that he sees when he closes his eyes – left his relationship with his daughter, and his career, damaged.

Tim Ayliffe – himself a journalist for the past 20 years and currently the Managing Editor of Television and Video news for the ABC – brings Bailey and those around him to life in this intriguing political thriller.

When a beautiful call girl apparently suicides, Bailey reconnects with his ex-, hard-as-nails detective Dexter, and a duplicitous CIA operative he knew from Iraq, and starts to uncover a conspiracy that led to the woman’s murder. It’s a story which will take him as high as the Australian Prime Minister, and reignite his passion for reporting the news – if he can unravel it with himself, his daughter and Dexter unharmed.

The Greater Good is exciting stuff – a fiction, no doubt, but knowing Ayliffe’s career, probably based on a few people that he crossed pens with over the years. It’s believable – which is key – and very well written. My bet is we’ll see it – and the next two John Bailey novels Ayliffe has signed on to write – on TV within five years.

Category: Book Reviews