The Killing Time
Ali Dawson #2
By Elly Griffiths
ISBN: 9780593834619
Author’s website: ellygriffiths.co.uk/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar
Summary
The second mystery following Ali Dawson, the brilliant time-traveling detective, on her newest foray into Victorian London
Detective Ali Dawson leads a unit that investigates cases so cold her team must travel back in time to solve them. But ever since their technical expert, Jones, got stuck in Victorian London, Ali and her team have been forbidden from time travel.
At a loss, Ali dives into a present-day case – an apparent suicide of a young man who fell to his death from a high building. Ali believes the death is linked to a bad-news psychic medium, Barry Power, who convinced the boy he could fly. Suspicious, Ali attends one of Power’s shows, where he claims to be in contact with none other than Jones.
Minor trouble closer to home inspires Ali to sneak back in time just long enough to prevent misfortune. Her plan backfires, and she finds herself once again in Victorian London, where she reencounters Jones, as well as the darkly mysterious Cain Templeton, with whom Ali has unfinished business from her previous visit to the nineteenth century . . .
When she spies Barry Power lurking in the past, Ali knows she’s onto something. But with a potential murderer operating in multiple centuries, how on earth is she supposed to protect everyone at risk?
It’s a different time. It’s a dangerous time. It’s the killing time.
Review
The Killing Time starts a year after the events of the Frozen People. Ali Dawson is now the Detective Inspector of the team after the death of their colleague Geoff. The department of Cold Cases has currently gone dormant after last year’s events and the fact that Dr Jones is lost in the 1850s. In addition, Ali’s new boss has banned any further time travel and is having them help with mundane cases.
Ali still feels the phantoms of her time being stuck in 1850 and all the people she met there, specifically Cain Templeton, the man who she seems to have a relationship with later on in the 1850s. After taking a new case, the team learns that a medium, Barry Power, seems to be channeling a Victorian London mesmerizer and during a performance attended by Ali and Dina, Barry tells them that a woman called Serafina is contacting him from the afterlife.
The name of Serafina is Dr. Jones’ real name, which makes the team question if Barry Powers is actually a medium or if he might be a time traveler. If so, this could be their answer to getting Dr. Jones back.
I like reading Ali’s POV during this book, not just the time travel parts, but also about the changes to her personal life. I do like Finn, Ali’s son. I was a little disappointed we didn’t get a lot from him this time, but it did seem he was busy in the background. Ali’s romantic life is almost none existent, even though there was the museum curator, it seems that Ali’s heart is set for Cain Templeton in the past. I wonder how that will play out later.
This time, the case is a bit strange. While all the evidence points that Barry Power didn’t have anything to do with the young man’s death, as a reader I still didn’t trust Barry. Given what we have learned from time traveling, nothing can be trusted and a medium even less. What is even worse is that Ali gets even more involved in the case, when her second husband is murdered.
I liked the fact that we got to know what happened to Serafina after she rescued John. So far she has made herself wealthy and a comfortable life in 1850’s London. While we don’t have a clear resolution of her story in this book, I’m starting to get an idea of what might happen to her and what her decision will cause.
Most of all, I liked that in the Killing Time, we get more POV of the other members of the team. Dina and John get sub stories in the background, and we get to know them a bit more. It was nice reading their parts. I do mistrust anyone outside of the team, but I hope they all get their happy ending at the end.
Will there be more to this series? I hope there is as I want to see Ali travel again to the past and even see if Dina gets the chance to travel herself. But most of all, I want to know what the deal with those damn chairs is, what their history is and how they work.
