A Murder in Time

Each time a reader opens a work of fiction, he or she is asked to suspend belief in the real world and enter the universe the author has created.  That's the case in Julie McElwain's crime novel, A Murder in Time (#589).  It's an enjoyable journey.




Twenty-first century FBI profiler Kendra Donovan is on a joint task force to apprehend an arms dealer who trades in chemical weapons.  Kendra has tracked him down to a meet in New York City that could net them an even bigger fish - Sir Jeremy Greene.  The raid goes south, thanks to an FBI mole on the team.  Kendra barely survives the carnage.  She spends her recovery plotting how exactly to deal with Greene when she is physically able; the only problem is that the US Government won't sanction her actions, so she goes rogue.




During a costume ball at the ancient British Aldridge Castle where she is taken on to play the role of a ladies' maid, Kendra must flee, using a secret passageway.  When she emerges at the other end, she has been transported to 1815.  Her ladies' maid disguise helps her conceal where she has come from as she tries to deal with her translocation in time.  Since the Castle is hosting a house party, she is able to join the staff as temporary help.  When a picnic by a lake is disturbed by the discovery of a young girl's body, brutally murdered, Kendra applies her serial killer profiling skills to tracking down the murderer.  The Duke of Aldridge is much taken by her analysis, and his nephew, Alec reluctantly comes to agree as other bodies are found.  The killer is amongst them, but can they stop him before he murders again?


This is a hard-boiled (language!) detective novel grafted onto a Regency romance, yet somehow it all works.  One small nitpick - when Kendra is assigned to a single young lady at the 1815 house party as her temporary maid, her charge's name migrates from Georgette to Georgina, and never goes back.  Sloppy editing!


My major nitpick with this book is the cover.  I know, I know.  I haven't said anything about covers in a long time, but this one is so wrong.  It features a black and white photo of a castle (which looks French to me, but what do I know?), and an upside down black and white photo of the New York skyline.  So far, so good.  The middle portion that grabs your eye is a misty back view of a young woman running away from the viewer in a voluminous white dress totally wrong for the time period. 
They could easily have found the proper silhouette, but they've already lost the battle for male readers.  I kept telling my husband that he would enjoy this book, like Alex Kava's profiling series, but he wouldn't be seen dead holding such a "chick" book.  Too bad for Julie McElwain that her publishers decided to limit her market appeal.


I stayed up late to finish this one, so check it out if you're looking for something a little bit different.