Book Review: Caught in Time By Julie McElwain
- William Kercher
- Oct 18, 2019
- 2 min read
Caught in Time is the third novel in what is now a four book, Kendra Donovan historical mystery series. The fourth book in the series, Betrayal in Time, has recently been released. However, this fourth book has not yet been reviewed.
As with the first two novels in the series, A Murder in Time and A Twist in Time, Caught in Time is a murder mystery with a science fiction, time-travel aspect to it.
In Caught in Time, the science-fiction aspect of the story has moved a bit to the background. As with the first two books, the heart of Caught in Time is Kendra Donovan. In the 21st century, Kendra was an FBI investigator before time-traveling to the 19th century. Because of her 21st century training with the FBI as a behavioral analysist and a psychological profiler, she is seen by her 1815 contemporary investigators as a super-sleuth.
There is a cultural side of the story that is interesting. The socially accepted norms of England in the early 1800s were that women were expected to know their place and not step out of that place. Therefore, people did not want to hear Kendra opinions about the murders simply because she was a female. Staying in her place, with her mouth and mind closed, was not Kendra’s nature. By the force of her will and her knowledge, she inserts herself into the investigations. Because she was so logical, and correct, she eventually won the investigators, even the most chauvinistic males, over to her reasoning.
In many ways, Kendra is portrayed in the series as a Sherlock Holmes type character. That was one of the aspects of the book that I found very interesting.
As I read the book, I began to wonder if the story was going to be a straight murder mystery and without any reference to the time-travel aspect that had made the first two novels interesting. However, near the end, the author threw in an unexpected twist that solved all of my concerns.
To sum up my review of Caught in Time, I enjoyed the book and can happily recommend it to anyone interested in a super-sleuth mystery that leans toward science-fiction. It is an interesting read.
