The Blurb (from Goodreads):
She's a woman in a man's world ...
Sydney, 1946. Billie Walker is living life on her own terms. World War II has left her bereaved, her photojournalist husband missing and presumed dead. Determined not to rely on any man for her future, she re-opens her late father's detective agency.
Billie's bread and butter is tailing cheating spouses - it's easy, pays the bills and she has a knack for it. But her latest case, the disappearance of a young man, is not proving straightforward ...
Soon Billie is up to her stylish collar in bad men, and not just the unfaithful kind - these are the murdering kind. Smugglers. Players. Gangsters. Billie and her loyal assistant must pit their wits against Sydney's ruthless underworld and find the young man before it's too late.
My Thoughts:
Billie Walker is a former war correspondent who is trying to rebuild her life back in 1940s Sydney after the death of her husband. She has taken over her father’s private investigation bureau, and is making her living tailing cheating husbands and wives. One day a woman comes to her in desperate need. Her son has gone missing, and she wants Billie to find him. The case is a lot more complex and dangerous than Billie had imagined, and leads her both into Sydney’s high society and its grimy underworld. The action is fast-paced, and full of vivid period detail that really brings post-war Australia to life. Tara Moss loves 1940s style, and makes her own clothes, and this knowledge of the fashion of the times added an intriguing thread to Billie’s character. Plus there’s the subtle possibility of a romance developing with the detective also working the case, which adds a pleasant frisson of intrigue. The story is really cinematic – in fact, it’s crying out for a glamorous TV series in the style of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. I really hope someone makes it!
Get Your Copy of Dead Man Switch HereYou might also like to read my review of The Passengers by Eleanor Limprecht:
