It's 1946, and though war correspondent Billie Walker is happy to finally be home, for her the heady postwar days are tarnished by the loss of her father and the disappearance of her husband, Jack. To make matters worse, the newspapers are now sidelining her reporting talents to prioritise jobs for returning soldiers. Determined to take control of her own future, she reopens her late father's private investigation agency, and, slowly, the women of Sydney come knocking. At first, Billie's bread and butter is tailing cheating husbands. Then, a young man, the son of European immigrants, goes missing, and Billie finds herself on a dangerous new trail that will lead her to the highest levels of Sydney society, and down into its underworld. As the danger mounts and Billie realises that much more than one man's life is at stake, it becomes clear that, though the war was won, it is far from over. This is a wonderful start to what I hope is a lengthy series. I enjoy strong women solving mysteries and making things right and this book stars a very strong woman doing exactly that.

Thank you to NetGalley and VERVE Books for giving me a copy to review.

The War Widow is set in Australia in 1946 and follows Billie Walker, a private inquiry agent, as she tries to solve the mystery of a missing 17 year old boy. I really enjoyed this story and I liked the supporting characters who included her assistant Sam and a young Aboriginal woman called Shyla.

There didn't need to be quite so many descriptions of Billie's clothes and surroundings.

Tara Moss writes an atmospheric first in a historical mystery series set in the turbulent and challenging post-war times in Sydney, featuring a memorable, stylish, and glamorous sleuth Billie Walker, a journalist having reported on the frontline of the war in Europe has returned, a married woman whose husband, photographer Jake Rake, missing in action. Grieving his loss, made worse by not knowing what happened to him, she is pushed out of serious reporting, Billie is instead offered society and women's issues, and instead resurrects her late former police officer father, Barry's PI Agency, he had left the force due to the corruption. It's a turbulent time of rationing, broken and scarred men proliferate, the social norms enforce class, gender, and racial inequalities, women are expected to leave war posts for the men and aboriginal communities, for good reason, distrust the police.

Billie has employed 24 year old Samuel Baker as her assistant, the agency barely surviving on the divorce cases that make up their workload. Billie wants more, and she gets in when distraught and despairing mother, Netanya Brown, engages her to find her missing 17 year old son, Adin, the police unable to help her. As she and Sam begin to dig into Adin's life and friends, they follow leads that take them to the exclusive club, The Dancers, and from this point, danger surrounds them. They are under constant surveillance, stumbling over dead bodies, thrown into the midst of ruthless criminal underworld, being attacked and there are sinister machinations intent on preventing the determined trailblazing Billie investigating.

Will Billie succeed in locating Adin in time, and will DI Hank Cooper prove to be a help or a hindrance? Moss creates a exciting, complex, and charismatic character in Billie, you cannot help but be impressed by her, in addition there is a real feel of authenticity of the Sydney of the time, the culture, fashions, buildings, the treatment of aboriginal people, and more. There is a wonderful supporting cast, in the form of the extremely able Sam, Billie's fascinating aristocratic mother, Ella, struggling financially, and Shyla. This is such a promising series, with oodles of suspense and tension, and storylines that show it is hard to escape the repercussions of WW2, even in Australia. I cannot wait for the next in this fantastic historical series. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

It’s 1946, and Sydney is as far from battle-ravaged Europe as PI Billie Walker can get. But the shadow of the war over her life is lengthening, and not just in the grief she feels for her photographer husband, Jack, who was captured in Poland and not heard from again. A new investigation, searching for a missing Jewish boy, is leading Billie into the web of Nazi profiteers who have found a way to continue cashing in on the conflict. Dark reminders of war pile up around her; the black leather glove always worn by her trusty assistant, Sam, a war veteran, to hide his mutilated hand, the bat-shaped necklace stolen from a Holocaust victim, a dreadful hoard of death-camp gold… As Billie feels the mortal danger of this case close in, her memories of being in Europe with Jack grow stronger; “But now she wasn’t in Vienna. She was in Australia and the war wasn’t over. The war had come to her.”
And in the story’s heart-thumping denouement, Billie finds Australian echoes of the genocide and racial oppression she saw in Nazi-occupied Europe. The horrible fate of prisoners at Ravensbrück, the women’s concentration camp north of Berlin, is here shadowed by the experience of Australia’s indigenous women who are held against their will, exploited and preyed upon. The parallel is subtle but devastating.
Billie Walker is an intriguing, engaging protagonist. A feisty, hard-working Australian who is also the daughter of a Dutch aristocrat, she is always dressed to kill, literally, with up to the minute fashions and a pistol concealed in her stocking garter. The War Widow cleverly weaves meticulous period detail into the gripping fictional plot. The glamour of post-war Sydney gleams from Billie’s sunglasses and tilt-hats, from sleek automobiles and palm-filled cocktail bars. Atmosphere also oozes from the appropriately noirish writing style. There’s even a night club called The Dancers in a nod to a bar of the same name in Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye.
The War Widow’s title contains an enigma that maybe hints at where a sequel could lead. Because although Billie Walker is treated as a widow, her true status is uncertain. Officially, Jack is only missing not dead, so his absence is crying out for an investigation by his indefatigable wife. And after the excitement and rich atmosphere of Billie Walker’s first case, a sequel to The War Widow is a novel I’d love to read!

I have never read a book by Tara Moss so was quite interested to see how this book was. This is the story of Billie Walker's search for a missing young man after the end of WWII. Set in Sydney, Billie is a journalist who has endured so much and is now left without a father, husband and her journalism job. When she takes on a job tailing cheating husbands she ends up finding more than she bargained for.

This is certainly an interesting and thrilling read which takes you on a journey right along with Billie. It is fast paced and has the twists and turns you want from a good mystery/thriller. The characters work well and Billie is a strong, independent woman which I liked. A great read and I will definitely be looking into finding more books by this author.

Thank you NetGalley and Oldcastle Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

For me, this is a crime series with a twist. Billie Walker returns from being a reporter in Europe to Sydney after the war when her father becomes ill. She has reopened his private investigation agency to assist the citizens of Sydney. She usually deals with unfaithful husbands, but a fresh case has just arrived on her desk. A heartbroken mother requests that Billie locate her missing teenage son. They begin investigating the boy's last known movements with the help of her loyal helper Sam. This takes them down a dark path with the city's most dangerous characters. How did a young boy become involved in Sydney's underbelly, and where is he now? In addition, Billie has been requested to assist a friend who fears members of her family are being threatened by a man in the Blue Mountains. Billie is ready to go.

I had a very clear picture of Billie's life in 1946 Sydney when reading this book. Tara Moss' research has produced a scene in which you find yourself completely immersed. Being a Sydney girl myself, I could imagine the regions Billie and Sam were working in, although a few decades back. The architecture, clothes, and people's attitudes were all present. Billie has supporters, but she is also a working woman in a period when this is still looked upon. Not only that, but in many people's eyes, woman is doing a man's job.

Both Billie and Sam are compelling personalities. Both have been damaged by the conflict in more ways than one. Their stories have so much more to tell. During the war, Billie married Jack, a photojournalist, but he went missing. She is still hoping that he would return to her. In future novels, I want to discover more about Jack and what happened to him.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book in return for an honest review. While the book was enjoyable, good female character, post WW2 driven plot albeit in Australia which made for a pleasant change and reminiscent of good detective novels with good humour included the book needed better editing. Frequently the plot is interrupted for a WW2 history lesson such as an explanation of what happened at Ravensbruck. This information distracts from the flow of the story and is usually well known to the reader if they are reading this type of novel and could in any case be included as a footnote or authors note at the end. Otherwise I enjoyed the book, the main character and her assistant and will read subsequent books in the series.

Strong woman in post-war Australia;
Billie Walker is a strong woman who inherited her father's detective agency. The book is set in 1946 and the aftereffects of the war can also be felt in Australia. As a European, I found it very interesting how people experienced the war there and what effects it had. The author has researched many historical details very thoroughly. I really liked Billie and her assistant, they are likeable main characters that I would like to read more about. They work in a structured manner and make good progress using their own resources. The charm of early US detective novels, which make me think of tough men and black-and-white films, was very evident here, despite the female main character. The case was exciting and was typical of the time in which it is set. I also thought it was good that dealing with the Aborigines was discussed. The writing style was pleasant and flawless. I would love to see more from Billie Walker!

A very refreshing story!
Set in Sydney just after the war, with a great woman protagonist, but delving into deep dark secrets that some people will kill to hide.

War Correspondent Billie Walker returns to Australia at the end of WW2 after a traumatic war not least,including the disappearance of her husband. She's disillusioned by the attitudes towards female journalists as men return from the armed services and get priority. She takes over her late Father's Detective Agency, just getting by mostly investigating straying husbands .
When Billie is asked to find the young son of European migrants what she assumes will be a fairly simple job escalates into violence and and pits her against some seriously nasty people.

This is a good story, Billie is a great character and the book appears to be the first in a series with the fate of her husband still unknown and a the beginnings of what could turn into long-running backstories being established.
While it was interesting and mostly entertaining it does drag at times,not least when whatever Billie is wearing seems to be detailed at great length which had my "kindle finger" flipping past. There were a couple of physical confrontations and an instance of a supposed detective being hilariously fooled towards the end that had me shaking my head in disbelief.
I enjoyed the book largely,great to see a strong female character in a detective story, but I found it slow moving and too often unbelievable.

“’He looks a lot more like a body rolled in a rug than I was hoping.’ Ella observed quietly as she and Alma inspected their handiwork. ‘Let's hope we don't run into any neighbours or the next tenant meeting will be hell.’”

The War Widow, also titled Dead Man Switch, is the first book in the Billie Walker Mystery series by award-winning Australian/Canadian author, Tara Moss. It’s 1946 in Sydney, and the climate favours returned servicemen in jobs while the women who filled those roles during the war are relegated to domestic duties. Formerly a war journalist, Billie Walker’s current profession is already seen as a masculine one, so she’s going emphatically against the grain by running her deceased father’s private inquiry business.

But there’s a call for female investigative agents: obtaining evidence to allow wives to divorce errant husbands makes up the majority of her work, but Mrs Netanya Brown has come about her missing seventeen-year-old son, Adin. “A good boy”, she insists. Billie intuitively knows there’s something not being said, but a near empty work agenda means she can hardly be choosy. She takes the case.

Meanwhile, her confidential informant asks her to look into the welfare of four young women from her mob who have been assigned to work for a man in the lower Blue Mountains. And just why is Vincenzo Moretti, a PI with a grudge against the late Barry Walker, watching her flat?

Moss gives the reader a fast-paced plot filled with intrigue, some nasty villains and a heart-thumping climax. With mentions of fashion, petrol rationing, disfigured veterans, social attitudes and the scarcity of certain commodities, Moss easily evokes the era and ambience of immediate post-war Sydney.

Billie is feisty and determined, and manages to hold her own, although she does end up ruining several frocks and quite a lot of (difficult to come by) stockings. Luckily, she’s a dab hand with a sewing machine as well as a lockpick and her little Colt 908.

Moss gives Billie a marvellous support cast, with a hint of sexual tension between Billie and two of the male characters and occasional moments of dark humour. Some background matters remain unresolved, no doubt to be addressed in later books. Certainly, more of this excellent post-war Aussie noir series will be most welcome.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Verve Books.