After ending her terrific Rockton series, prolific author Kelley Armstrong presents us with a mystery boasting a different twist.

While Vancouver detective Mallory Atkinson is out jogging in Edinburgh, Scotland as she takes a break from visiting her dying grandmother, she is brutally attacked. She wakes up days later, but in what seems like a never-ending nightmare, she realizes that she is in the body of a housemaid and somehow has been transported back 150 years in time.

"A RIP THROUGH TIME is pure Kelley Armstrong, featuring fabulous, likable and diverse characters, gripping action, and a compelling mystery or two to solve."

Catriona Mitchell, the much younger maid, is far from an exemplary character. She steals from her employers, leads men on and would sell out her best friend for a few shillings. She, too, was being brutally attacked when Mallory "intruded" in her body. Mallory can only assume that her own body has been co-opted by Catriona. Fortunately for Mallory, Catriona works in a home where two quite unusual adults reside.

Dr. Duncan Gray, a man of color, is an undertaker and a medical examiner. He is extremely interested in forensics, and dead bodies are regularly brought to his workplace --- inside his home --- for him to examine. Needless to say, Mallory-turned-Catriona becomes surprisingly good at assisting him in such examinations. Her change of personality and inability to remember basic things (like how to wake up without an alarm clock or how to start a fire) are blamed on the blow to her head during her attack.

Mallory is desperate to return to her own time, but as the days pass, she comes to understand that she needs to get adjusted to life in Victorian Edinburgh, at least for a while. Trying not to spill modern forensic secrets while keeping her own secret proves difficult. Mallory also must deal with the many people who truly dislike Catriona because she was/is a pretty awful person. There's also the would-be murderer, who failed in his first attempt to kill Catriona and just might try again.

The action is nonstop, and this trip to the past is fascinating. Armstrong's characters are seen through both Mallory's modern eyes and uptight Victorian mores. She makes a point of showing how, in some ways, class strictures and the oppressing cloak of poverty have continued to keep the poor in a disadvantaged state, just as it's been throughout history. A RIP THROUGH TIME is pure Kelley Armstrong, featuring fabulous, likable and diverse characters, gripping action, and a compelling mystery or two to solve.