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ABOUT 2011, when I was working on the novel Blood and Dust, the first of my Vampires in the Sunburnt Country duology, I found my former police detective Phillip Reece musing about the fateful day that he stumbled into the shadow world of Maximilian von Schiller's vampire organisation: 'The moment he'd faced Mira in West End and said yes.' But what was that moment? I had half an idea that his role as a Special Branch detective in 1970s Brisbane had brought him into contact with Maximilian's right-hand weapon, Mira, and the details didn't matter so much. But as Reece developed as a character, the facts came to matter, if only so his reflections on his past had veracity and consistency. The reader didn't need to know the specifics but I did. And so I penned this 'origin' story of a major moment in Reece's life, and Mira's too, to some extent: a moment that would come to ensnare Kevin Matheson - mechanic, renegade, vampire.

For outback mechanic Kevin Matheson, it's just another summer's day. Mulga wavering in the haze, sweat on his brow, bastard flies getting in his way.

And then the vampires arrive, leaving his life like road kill in their wake.

Caught between vicious nomadic bikers and their brutal foes from the coast, Kevin fights to save not only those he holds dearest, but his own soul.

But how far will he go to save the people he loves?

Kevin Matheson is coming to Brisbane with revenge on his mind. Even for a vampire, there is no time like the present. He has a score to settle with Mira, the sadistic killer who tore his life in outback Queensland apart.

For Mira's bodyguard, Reece, worn out and fading a little more each day, the present is all he has. He is determined to spend it protecting his mistress, for better or worse.

But as the two men head for a collision the vampires of Brisbane have their own plans - plans that will lead Kevin and Reece down roads they never expected to travel.

And at the end of the line, at the intersection of loyalty and vengeance, both face the questions: who are they willing to sacrifice to win the war?