The Poisoner's Ring (#1,163) is a follow-up to Kelley Armstrong's A Rip Through Time, which I will now have to go back and read. It's a time travel novel set in Edinburgh in 1869. In this case Mallory Mitchell is a Canadian homicide detective who in the original book finds herself suddenly in the body of a nineteen-year-old maid in an undertaker's household.
This time, her employer, Dr. Duncan Gray, has had a couple of suspicious cases come through his funeral parlor which the police surgeon uses as his morgue, victims of apparent poisoning. Are the wives responsible for getting rid of their husbands? At first it appears so, but when Dr. Gray's brother-in-law Lord Leslie becomes the latest victim, and his sister Lady Annis is accused of poisoning him, things are too close to home to warrant a casual investigation.
This book doesn't take itself too seriously, and that's the delightful part of it. Mallory Mitchell struggles with adapting to Victorian manners and mores (not to mention the constricting clothes!). Because Dr. Gray and his sister Isla have accepted Mallory's story, they make use of the knowledge Mallory is able to contribute to the investigations that Duncan Gray can't help but conduct.
Did I mention that it's a really good mystery on top of all this? It keeps you guessing until the end. Recommended.
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