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Summary
Summary
In this series debut from New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong, a modern-day homicide detective finds herself in Victorian Scotland--in an unfamiliar body--with a killer on the loose.
"A great read." --Charlaine Harris
MAY 20, 2019: Homicide detective Mallory Atkinson is in Edinburgh to be with her dying grandmother. While out on a jog one evening, Mallory hears a woman in distress. She's drawn to an alley, where she is attacked and loses consciousness.
MAY 20, 1869: Housemaid Catriona Mitchell had been enjoying a half day off, only to be discovered that night strangled and left for dead . . . exactly one hundred and fifty years before Mallory is strangled in the same spot.
When Mallory wakes up in Catriona's body in 1869, she must put aside her shock and adjust quickly to her new reality: life as a housemaid to an undertaker in Victorian Scotland. She soon discovers that her boss, Dr. Gray, also moonlights as a medical examiner and has just taken on an intriguing case, the strangulation of a young man, similar to the attack on herself. Her only hope is that catching the murderer can lead her back to her modern life . . . before it's too late.
In A Rip Through Time , New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong introduces a brand-new series mixing mystery, romance, and fantasy with thrilling results.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
When the Scottish grandmother of Vancouver police detective Mallory Atkinson, the narrator of this inventive series launch from bestseller Armstrong (the Rockton novels), enters hospice care, Mallory flies to Edinburgh for one last visit. After a difficult day at Nan's bedside, Mallory jogs through the Grassmarket, where she spies a flickering female figure in Victorian garb calling for help. When Mallory stops to assist, a man ambushes and chokes her. Mallory wakes in 1869 Edinburgh, her consciousness trapped in the bruised body of the woman she tried to save--an illiterate housemaid named Catriona Mitchell. Mallory tries to keep a low profile lest Catriona's employers--undertaker Duncan Gray and his widowed half-sister, chemist Isla Ballantyne--fire or institutionalize her before Mallory finds a way home, but when she realizes Duncan is a forensics pioneer working with a forward-thinking cop to solve a bizarre murder, Mallory can't resist getting involved. Armstrong puts a fresh, fun spin on an age-old premise. Mallory's snarky narration complements the delightfully preposterous plot, and the vividly sketched cast is studded with charming iconoclasts. Readers will eagerly anticipate future installments. Agent: Lucienne Diver, Knight Agency. (May)
Kirkus Review
A Vancouver police detective visiting Edinburgh is magically transported back to 1869, where she gets involved in a murder case in which her avatar is deeply implicated. One moment Detective Mallory Atkinson is getting throttled by an identifiable man; the next she's awakening as Catriona Mitchell, who's been similarly strangled and left for dead in the same spot. The second attack turns out to be useful for Mallory, who uses Catriona's trauma as an excuse for forgetting lots of things she ought to know as housemaid to undertaker Duncan Gray, whose medical degree sharpens his interest in the death of Evening Courant crime reporter Archie Evans, a victim of what only Mallory recognizes as waterboarding. What did Archie know that someone wanted to torture out of him? Partnering alternately with Edinburgh Detective Hugh McCreadle; her employer; and Gray's half sister, shrewd herbalist Isla Ballantyne, Mallory peers into Edinburgh's seamy underside as she struggles to uncover the truth. It's a tough job because the most dramatic discoveries she makes are that the woman whose body she's inhabiting is a bully and a thief and maybe worse and that Evans' killer, who goes on to stage another murder that uncannily foretells the work of Jack the Ripper, may well be another visitor from the 21st century. Armstrong handles the time-traveling problems concerning Mallory's disjointed consciousness and other characters' awareness that she's not your typical housemaid with unusual resourcefulness and dexterity. Although the heroine is desperate to return to her own time and place by hook or by crook, the fade-out presents a future that's pleasingly ambiguous. The murders are the least mysterious aspect of this clever time-traveling thriller. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Popular fantasy novelist Armstrong (the Darkest Powers series; the Rockton novels; Tales of the Otherworld) launches a new series with this time-travel mystery. Mallory, an American homicide cop, is in Scotland, visiting her grandmother. After she's viciously assaulted, she awakens feeling . . . different. Turns out she's now 150 years in the past, in another woman's body. The woman whose body she now inhabits works as an assistant to an undertaker who doubles as a medical examiner, and soon Mallory finds herself on the trail of a murderer. But how to solve the bigger mystery and find the time-traveler's way back home? Readers who enjoy a good time-travel mystery might notice similarities to Julie McElwain's A Murder in Time (2016) and its sequels (in which a modern-day FBI agent finds herself catapulted back to the mid-1800s), but Armstrong's fans can be assured that this is no imitation: Armstrong has her own voice, and this is a promising start to a new series.
Library Journal Review
"Rockton" series author Armstrong builds an intense, intricately plotted mystery in this series debut. Vancouver police detective Mallory Atkinson is in Edinburgh, Scotland, to be with her beloved grandmother, who is dying. When she's out running, she hears a scream and follows it down an alley. Instead of saving the woman, Mallory is attacked and loses consciousness. She wakes up in an Edinburgh household in 1869. She's in the body of Catriona Mitchell, the 19-year-old housemaid she saw being strangled. She's lucky that Dr. Duncan Gray is her employer because he's fascinated by forensics, and together with a police detective, he's interested in new methods. He's even willing to allow his housemaid to assist in his studies. Mallory believes the only way to get back to 2019 is to find the man who killed Catriona. She hides her knowledge of 21st-century police procedures while juggling her investigation and her incompetence as a housemaid. As the strangler escalates his killing, Mallory works with a small team of investigators without revealing she's from the future. VERDICT The complex characters cope with racism and sexism in Victorian Edinburgh. Highly recommended for fans of Julie McElwain's "Kendra Donovan" time-travel series.--Lesa Holstine
