Elly Griffiths is the author of two very successful series of novels, knocking off dozens of titles. She apparently has a huge fanbase. This book promises the be the first of a series featuring Ali Dawson, a London detective serving in a secret division of the Metropolitan Police. That division’s specialty is … wait for it … time travel. That had me hooked. Dawson is sent back in time to 1850 to do — well, it’s not entirely clear what exactly she is supposed to do. But she gets stuck there for a few days and meanwhile, in the present, her son is arrested for a murder which he obviously didn’t commit. The idea of parallel murders in the past and the present has been done before, and time travel is always appealing to me, but — the book doesn’t work. Much of the plot makes no sense. Many questions are left unanswered, as if the book was rushed. Maybe it was. This is the start of a new series, but I’m not particularly tempted to continue with it.