by Gillian McAllister ★★★★★
Just after midnight, on the night before Halloween, things are going fine for our main character, Jen Brotherhood. She's been married for almost 20 years to her husband, Kelly; they're still very much in love with each other, and they have a wonderful and quirky teenaged son named Todd.
Todd happens to be out this night, later than usual, and Jen is waiting up for him. As she watches out their picture window, she sees him coming down the street, at last. But relief quickly turns to horror when Todd has an altercation with a man on the street, and before anyone can intervene, Todd has fatally stabbed the man. After helplessly trying to connect with him at the police station and being denied (he's just turned 18, so no parental privilege), Jen and Kelly return home and eventually fall asleep.
Jen wakes up the next day...but it's two days before, October 28. The requisite "what the heck is happening?" rationalization occurs, but once acceptance sets in that she's not crazy, the meat of the story of Wrong Place, Wrong Time is now in full effect. Jen continuously moves backward in time, stuck in a time loop that she doesn't know how to get out of, but assuming it must have something to do with solving why her sweet and quirky teenager, who has never been violent in any way, would have reason to stab a stranger in the street.
I was intrigued by the premise, but I was skeptical. Guess what? It works.
It's a different approach from something like Groundhog Day (reliving the same day at a time) or Memento (waking up each day with no memory). Jen remembers everything; but because she's moving backward in time, she has to collect clues in the course of a day, and she can't rely on continuity from anyone but herself. As she gradually understands who the victim at her son's hand is and how he's connected to Todd (and her husband), she gets closer to the answer. But every time she goes to sleep, she wakes up even earlier, sometimes jumping months or even years at a time.
McAllister uses the unique "back in time" tactic as more than just a novel idea -- it adds to the story, and erases certain approaches that in a "normal" mystery would be easy solves. For example, there's one point where Jen is looking for a piece of information. A colleague notes "Oh, I can order the report -- it only takes two days for them to deliver it". Jen immediately dismisses it, because two days may as well be an eternity. It's useless to her.
Where Wrong Place, Wrong Time also excels is that McAllister does a great job of making a fantastical (as far as we know!) premise real through little moments. Whether it's Jen reliving a tender moment with Todd from years prior, or her frustration that borders on anguish at being stuck in a time loop with seemingly no way out, McAllister helps develop a connection with the characters that adds depth to this page-turner. And she has fun with the relative ridiculousness of continuously waking up further in the past. One quick marker Jen uses regularly upon waking to quickly set her mental expectations on when she is is the size of her phone; another is how prominent her hip bones are.
I was hoping this one might be good, but I wasn't sure if the premise was going to hold up. I'm happy to say that it was executed well, and it's better than good. This is not just an average mystery made better by a novel approach to the story; it's a really solid mystery that would have been great even without the "back in time" schtick, and the well-crafted plot is only made better by the unique approach to it.