Synopsis
Detective Ada Byron is pumped to be assigned her first murder case–until she sees the crime scene. Someone has been killed exactly the same way as her father was seven years earlier. But, impossibly, he died using VR and the programmer responsible is still in prison.
To see if this is a copycat or something more sinister, Ada must confront her father’s killer: the enigmatic Jazlin Switch. What she discovers will change the face of both the real world and the metaverse forever…
Quick Review
Not content with just being a fun detective story, Thrill Switch also entertains questions about the role of law and the meaning of reality. It’s one of my favorite reads this year.
Full Review of Thrill Switch
Thrill Switch is an action-packed, thought-provoking, and genuinely fun story. I encourage you to stop right here—if you think the synopsis sounds good just go grab yourself a copy and give it a read. The less you know, the better, because this story has a ton of exciting twists and turns that I would rather not spoil.
However, I do feel a need to expand upon those thoughts just a bit, so I’ll do it as spoiler-free as possible. But you’ve been warned.
The story follows Las Vegas Detective Ada Byron who despite her aversion to cyberspace is intricately tied to some of the people who created it. The murders she’s brought on to investigate, which initially appear to be the work of Jazlin Switch, begin to reveal a much deeper plot that ropes in unexpected allies and enemies alike: from senators to internet trolls. The more we learn about what’s going on, the stakes only rise—and at times things take a dark turn.
The story isn’t just about the murders, though. Ada is forced to reckon with her distaste for VR and the people who live their lives in the virtual world. In doing so, author Tim Hawken raises some genuinely interesting questions about law and order, as well as the requirements for what makes something “real.” He balances these moments against more action-packed parts of the investigation well—of which there are a few stand-outs.
The point-of-view shifts away from Ada at times to give us a perspective from other characters in the story. Usually this shows us her partner’s perspective, but sometimes others’. Overall, this worked well for me, but I wasn’t a fan of how Ada’s chapters are all first person and the others’ are all third person. I got used to this, but it was a bit jarring at first, and I wished the story would have simply been all in third person for consistency. Your mileage may vary depending on how particular you are about perspective.
Otherwise, I loved this story. There’s a lot going on here, and many of the questions that the book raises are never fully answered. That could again be a mark against it for some readers, but I find it just allows me time to mull them over longer. Besides, all the important questions (who did the murder?) are cleanly wrapped up by the end.
This book was a ton of fun. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for what else Hawken has in store for us next.
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