This is book 12 of the "Modesty Blaise" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

A rather late addition to the series. #12, incidentally. The title is a reference to what we'd call a "dead-man's switch" in American English.

A rather nice one, though with a really thoroughly psychopathic bad guy (typical especially for the later books).

This is yet another book where the bad guys want and try to force Modesty and/or Willie to work with them. This is an amazingly common theme, actually.

Amusing to have Modesty profit so handsomely -- well over a million pounds, accidentally, just doing what they need to do to survive and keep their friends alive.