Caught in Time

May 14, 2018
Set in 1815, McElwain’s uneven third Kendra Donovan mystery (after 2017’s A Twist in Time) takes the Duke of Aldridge and unwilling time traveler and FBI profiler Kendra Donovan, who poses as his American ward, to Yorkshire. En route to the duke’s estate, fog forces them to stop in the small town of East Dingleford, where they learn that Harry Stone, the debauched and sadistic manager of a nearby textile mill, has been murdered. Though the constable assumes Stone was killed by the Luddites who have just vandalized the factory, Kendra’s forensic expertise suggests otherwise. Stone has myriad enemies, and the brutal murder of his wife further widens the field of suspects. Kendra bucks resistance to her gender as she interviews villagers, from the mill’s titled owner to a woman Stone harassed. Contemptuous of Regency mores and boorish by any era’s standards, Kendra remains the series’ weak point. Happily, the closing scenes hint at the emergence of a less heavy-handed portrayal. Series fans will look forward to the next installment. Agent: Jill Grosjean, Jill Grosjean Literary Agency.

May 1, 2018
An FBI agent struggles to adjust when she accidentally time travels back to the Regency period in England.Kendra Donovan fell back in time during an operation at Aldridge Castle, and when she wound up 200 years before she started out, she became the ward of the Duke of Aldridge, who knows her secret and is fascinated by her knowledge of the unimaginable future. Kendra proved her worth by saving the hide of the duke's nephew, Alec, Lord Sutcliffe, who was accused of murdering his former mistress (A Twist in Time, 2017). When her repeated attempts to return home fail, she and the duke travel to one of his smaller estates in Lancashire, where he hopes she'll become more adept in adjusting to the mores of 1815. Caught in a fog, they pass a group of Luddites just before bedding down at an inn. The magistrate and constable to whom the duke reports the group's presence plan to inspect the nearby cotton mill when they get news that the equipment has been damaged and the mill manager, Mr. Stone, murdered. Constable Jameson is ready to blame the Luddites until Kendra points out new evidence. The duke sends for Alec, who's become Kendra's lover, while Kendra interviews Mr. Biddle, the mill's assistant manager, and its owner, Lord Nathan Bancroft, the Earl of Langfrey, a man with a mysterious past. Stone, a poor manager with a bad reputation, was much disliked. When Stone's wife is tortured and murdered, Kendra wonders what the killer is so desperate to recover. Frustrated by her powerlessness as a woman, she must rely on the duke for entree despite her superior investigative skills. Even so, she solves the crimes while ruffling feathers along the way.McElwain's cross between a Regency romance and a time-travel fantasy combines a mediocre mystery with an exposé of many of the inequities of the era.

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