By Dennis Fischman

I am a sucker for historical mysteries, but too often, the author slips attitudes of her own time and place into the story. That is not a problem with A Murder in Time, by Julie McElwain, because the main character is a woman, an FBI profiler in the 21st century who’s trying to figure out what she’s doing in the early 19th century (and solve a murder mystery, along the way).

Kendra Donovan is a complicated character even before she falls through time. Her parents, both brilliant in their own right, conceived her as a kind of genetic experiment. They wanted to see if they could breed a sort of superwoman – a eugenics project that is itself a throwback to the early 20th century and makes me dislike them from the start.

I hate them when I find out they abandoned their teenage daughter when she insisted on having a life of her own. Oh, they make her financially comfortable, but as a young woman of genius who spends her time catching criminals, she is made to feel like a freak.

Hang in with her for the first six chapters while she goes on a field mission and develops a project to avenge some of her colleagues. That is the back story that takes her to Aldridge Castle in England, and it’s not clear if the 21st century will ever be relevant to her again. Because in that castle, she hides in a secret passageway and wakes up in the same castle in 1815.

First, she has to figure out whether or not she’s gone crazy. Then, how to fit into a society where the way people were born determines their places and chances. (She doesn’t want to fit in permanently, however; she wants desperately to go back to her own time and place, but it’s not clear how or if that will ever happen.)

And in the meantime, there’s one man – the heir to Aldridge – whom she’s falling in love with. There are other people, including a bluestocking noblewoman, who become her friends. Crucially, there are also young women getting killed in a particularly gruesome way that tells Kendra an organized serial killer is on the loose: years before Jack the Ripper, and centuries before she has developed the expertise to solve the crime.

Is there a reason that Kendra has been sucked back in time to this particular moment? Is it her destiny to catch murderers that no one else in Regency England would know how to find?

Author Julie McElwain plays fair. She gives enough biographical background to Kendra Donovan that we know why being a strong, independent woman is not just desirable to her: it’s been a matter of survival, and her identity depends on it. That’s a unique perspective from which to view gender roles, class domination, and the legal strictures under which people had to operate in Regency England.

I did figure out two important clues, one about the number of people involved and one about a turn of phrase that showed someone knew something he shouldn’t. That means those things were probably obvious! There was another clue I would have caught if I were more familiar with my Greek mythology.

So, go ahead and read the book, and the series, and I will be interested to hear what you make of it. In the future, of course!