Sunday, June 22, 2025

Death at a Highland Wedding (A Rip Through Time #4) by Kelley Armstrong

  

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Mystery, Historical Mystery, Fantasy
Content: Strong Language

 

After slipping 150 years into the past, modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson has embraced her new life in Victorian Scotland as housemaid Catriona Mitchel. Although it isn’t what she expected, she's developed real, meaningful relationships with the people around her and has come to love her role as assistant to undertaker Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie.

Mallory, Gray, and McCreadie are on their way to the Scottish Highlands for McCreadie's younger sister's wedding. The McCreadies and the groom’s family, the Cranstons, have a complicated history which has made the weekend quite uncomfortable. But the Cranston estate is beautiful so Gray and Mallory decide to escape the stifling company and set off to explore the castle and surrounding wilderness. They discover that the groom, Archie Cranston, a slightly pompous and prickly man, has set up deadly traps in the woods for the endangered Scottish wildcats, and they soon come across a cat who's been caught and severely injured. Oddly, Mallory notices the cat's injuries don't match up with the intricacies of the trap. These strange irregularities, combined with the secretive and erratic behavior of the groom, put Mallory and Duncan on edge. And then when one of the guests is murdered, they must work fast to uncover the murderer before another life is lost.

 

 

I liked the progress of some of the relationships in this book. I feel like things are progressing on that front at just the right pace for me. For me, the mystery wasn't as compelling as it was in the last book, but it was still an enjoyable read. I wish that there was more back and forth interaction through time. What I was really hoping for when I started this series was a glimpse into both time periods and it looks like this is just settling into being a Victorian mystery series, which isn't a bad thing, but I've read a lot of those already. I also feel like certain characters in this series have accepted this reality too easily. There was hardly any push back on the idea of time travel in previous books by characters who find out about Mallory's secret. That being said, I'm in no way disinterested in this series. I will definitely be reading the next book after it's published.

 

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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