Book #132 of 2022:
Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
This time-travel novel honestly struck me as a little gimmicky at first, and I’m not sure we ever do get to know the heroine’s son well enough for his actions in the opening chapter to make complete sense. But I found myself getting more and more engaged with the plot as the story went on, with its protagonist receding ever further into her own past, and by the end I was both fully on-board and pleasantly surprised by some of the twist reveals.
The basic premise: an ordinary British woman sees her teenager suddenly stab a man to death outside their home one night, and can’t fathom why he would have done so (or why he refuses to tell her). The next day, she wakes up that same morning, witnessing the events leading up to the stabbing all over again. And come the following dawn, it’s another day earlier still.
She has no idea why she’s in this bizarre scenario or how to escape it, although she plausibly decides to assume her task is to find the answers to those initial questions about her boy. There’s additional evidence to consider on each new date she revisits — which eventually begin speeding by, with new jumps taking her weeks and months and finally years further back at a go — as she either listens to conversations more carefully or explores avenues she’s previously never imagined. In the process, she uncovers quite a few troubling family secrets and hilariously has to keep readjusting to a slower and bulkier cell phone model, which I don’t believe I’ve ever seen depicted in science-fiction before. I also really enjoy the final note, after an academic acquaintance has repeatedly mused how a time loop would require some massive transfer of force to create, that mothers and other caretakers have been known to demonstrate feats of incredible physical strength when their children’s lives are threatened.
Ultimately this is a twisty tale with engaging explorations of parenthood and partnership and how their associated roles gradually transform us. I think the beginning could have been fine-tuned, and the interstitial chapters from a different POV probably could have been dropped altogether, since they tend to interrupt the narrative flow and contribute mainly red herrings to our understanding of the big picture. Plus I have a hard time believing that a character explicitly identified as coming from the year 2022 wouldn’t say anything about Covid as she travels into the past until one stray thought when she’s reached all the way to 2003. But overall, this title is much richer than the flimsy Memento knock-off thriller I initially took it for.
[Content warning for child endangerment and gore.]
★★★★☆
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