Dead Man’s Switch was my seventh Tara Moss book and does not rate anywhere the top half of my most enjoyable list. However, I will concede that I was listening while working at my PC. I often listen while working and I find an audiobook helps pass the time of day.
Set just after World War II in and around Sydney, Australia, the best way to describe Dead Man’s Switch is disjointed. Billie Walker (a wartime reporter) has returned to Australia and reopened her late father’s private enquiry agency. The agency is just making ends meet until she retrieves some aboriginal girls from the hands of a Nazi war criminal. That seemed to be a climax or end of the book, if you will. But no! Instead of every one living happily ever after there was another sixty to ninety minutes before ‘The End’ could be proclaimed.
After a mid-story car chase the novel seemed to take on a new life. Chapters appeared to be following one another which made following the story line easier. Dead Man’s Switch should/could have finished with the capture of the war criminal. However, had it done so we would never have known what relevance the Dead Man’s Switch had to the story.
I know of several people who would have tossed it after the first chapter. Ninety-three percent of Goodreads readers have rated Dead Man’s Switch as a three to five star book, so maybe I need to listen to it again….sometime!
WoollyMuses 