Killing Time by Linda Howard Review

Ballantine Books, June, 2005
Hardcover, 330 pages
ISBN: 034545345X
Ordering information:
Amazon.com

Killing Time
by Linda Howard In 1985, the citizens of tiny Pekesville, Kentucky bury a time capsule. Chief County Investigator Knox Davis was a boy when the capsule was buried. In the present day, the time capsule goes missing and dead bodies start showing up. Sherriff Davis is eager to solve the puzzle and visits a crime scene where a man was locked in his house, stabbed with a spear of unidentifiable material. When mysterious FBI agent Nikita Stover shows up at the crime scene, Knox's puzzle gets more complicated. Her ID doesn't check out, and her technology is clearly beyond that of 2005. In fact, she is with the FBI -- in 2207. Her job is to stop the murders and restore the time capsule to its proper place, in order to preserve the timeline. Knox takes some convincing, but eventually is persuaded that she's not crazy. But it looks like some of Nikita's own colleagues are behind the murders, which makes Nikita a liability to them. Nikita has other secrets, as well. And if she lives long enough, she might just share them with the attractive Knox.

Linda Howard mixes romance and suspense in this tightly-written, character-driven tale. The SF elements -- Nikita being from the future, for example -- are written with a matter of fact style that meshes quite well with the police procedural elements of the plot. Ms. Howard does an insightful job of predicting what society might be like in 2207 and what some of the big social issues are. Nikita and Knox are both fully-realized, engaging characters that pull the reader into this very entertaining story.





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