Publishers Weekly
03/07/2022
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)
From the Publisher
Praise for A Rip Through Time
“A rip-roaring great read. . . The best time travel tale I’ve read in a long time.” — The Providence Journal
“Armstrong builds an intense, intricately plotted mystery in this series debut.” —Library Journal (starred and boxed review)
“[A] clever time-traveling thriller.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Readers will eagerly anticipate future installments.” —Publishers Weekly
“A promising start to a new series.” —Booklist
“A Rip Through Time is pure Kelley Armstrong, featuring fabulous, likable and diverse characters, gripping action, and a compelling mystery or two to solve.” —Bookreporter.com
“Armstrong’s varied characters, lively writing style, and complex plot tempt us to binge read… Highly recommended.” —Historical Novel Society
“I, for one, will absolutely be following the further adventures of this historical series.” —Mystery and Suspense Magazine
“Striking characters, a twisty plot, and dealing with the sexism and racism of Victorian Edinburgh make this a stand-out among time-slip tales.”—Locus Magazine
“Outlander meets The Alienist in Kelley Armstrong's A Rip Through Time, the first book in this utterly compelling series, mixing romance, mystery, and fantasy with thrilling results.” —Fresh Fiction
"When police officer Mallory wakes up wearing a corset, she knows something's gone seriously sideways. Trapped in the body of a Victorian housemaid, Mallory must struggle to keep her secret and find a way home. Watching Mallory—and the talented Kelley Armstrong—juggle all these balls at one time is a great read." —Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Violently original, Kelley Armstrong's A Rip Through Time walks two very different time periods. Mallory handles solving a murder and being a woman in 19th century Scotland with grace and deftness. With compelling characters and plot, A Rip Through Time is one to look out for." —Nekesia Afia, author of Dead Dead Girls
"A fascinating time-slip mystery. Armstrong kept me guessing all the way to the end." —Darcie Wilde, national bestselling author of the Rosalind Thorne mysteries
Library Journal
★ 03/01/2022
"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
Kirkus Reviews
2022-03-02
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.
