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Review No 12: Already Dead by Jaye Ford

16/9/2014

1 Comment

 
We've all sat at the traffic lights with our mind a million miles away, but fortunately few of us have ever had to experience a random carjacking. For Miranda Jack (Jax) what was supposed to be a routine drive from Sydney to Newcastle turns into a nightmare in the space of a few seconds. Most puzzling is what the car jacker actually wants. Jax's car is not fancy and her abductor has not given her a specific destination. All he tells her is to drive on the freeway.

An experienced journalist, Jax does her best to calm her passenger down and extract some information, but it is largely a futile exercise. Although she manages a few snippets of his story such as the fact he has a wife and child, much of what he says is the ramblings of a person under great psychological stress. Alarmingly the one thing he keeps repeating is that he is "already dead".
Eventually the horrible ordeal is over for Jax, but the aftermath is only just beginning. Having moved to Newcastle to build a new life for herself and her daughter Zoe, Jax is still struggling to come to terms with her husband's death a year before. Now she has a whole new nightmare to deal with.

Like all Jaye Ford's books, Already Dead is a page turner right from the get go. The pace is relentless and the reader is right with Jax as she experiences first the carjacking and then the events that follow. Jax is a solid, well developed character - strong yet vulenrable, you cannot help but feel empathy for what she is going through. It ws also nice to have a regional setting in Newcastle. I enjoyed getting to know the city through the storyline.

Already Dead is a psychological thriller of the highest calibre. It draws you in, spins you round so you don't know which way is up and then spits you out at the other end still in a bit of a daze after the ride but having loved every moment of the journey.
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1 Comment
Bar Idan link
18/9/2023 05:18:53 am

Greeat reading your post

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    All AWW Challenge Reviews
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    I am excited to once again be participating in the Australian Women Writers Challenge for 2019. Although I am not currently reviewing books for the challenge,  I am still reading. You can find my reviews from previous years below.

    You can read my previous reviews by clicking on the links below.
    2012 Reviews
    2013 Reviews
    2014 Reviews
    2016 Reviews

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