Caught in Time

A Kendra Donovan Mystery

Julie McElwain

Still stranded in England in 1815, FBI agent Kendra Donovan finds herself on the trail of a vicious murderer with a shocking secret.

October 1815: There is only one place Kendra Donovan wants to travel—back to the twenty-first century. But since that’s not happening, she agrees instead to travel with her new guardian, the Duke of Aldridge, to one of his smaller estates in Lancashire. Their journey takes them through Yorkshire, a region whose breathtaking beauty masks a simmering violence brought on by the Industrial Revolution, which pits mill owner against worker.

When Kendra and the Duke encounter a band of Luddites on a lonely, fog-shrouded road, the Duke informs the authorities in the nearby village of East Dingleford that mischief may have been done at the local mill. However, it isn’t just mischief but murder that is discovered, when the body of the mill manager, Mr. Stone, is found brutally bludgeoned to death in his office.

The Constable is certain the radical-minded Luddites committed the murder. One look at the crime scene and Kendra knows they did not, prompting the Duke to shock the locals by volunteering their services to catch the real killer. Joined by lover Alec and Bow Street Runner Sam Kelly, Kendra must sort through the puzzle of Stone’s rather unsavory life, picking apart alibies and dissecting carefully created deceptions from a growing list of suspects.

As a special agent for the FBI, Kendra thought she’d encountered every kind of evil. But when another, even more vicious murder rocks East Dingleford, Kendra realizes that they’re dealing with a stone-cold killer—one who has a shocking secret that he will do anything to protect.

Julie McElwain began her journalistic career at California Apparel News, a weekly Los Angeles based trade newspaper. She has freelanced for numerous publications from professional photographers magazines to those following the fashion industry. Currently, Julie is West Coast Editor for Soaps In Depth, a national soap opera magazine covering the No. 1 daytime drama, The Young and the Restless. Julie lives in Long Beach, CA.

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Endorsements & Reviews

“If the Outlander series were written by Lisa Gardner, this would be the result. A tense page-turner with an excellent dose of feminism, social commentary, and badassery.” Criminal Element

"Caught in Time is an excellent historical mystery. McElwain weaves a delicate web that can keep readers guessing until the very last moment, and the time travel framing the story adds a fascinating extra layer. It's well-researched with a fast-moving plot and many quirky village characters." Shelf Awareness

"A solidly constructed crime novel with a little time travel. And it sure is fun to watch Kendra use modern-day forensic and investigative techniques in a time when crime solving was a rudimentary science." Booklist

"Outstanding. With perfect pacing, McElwain holds the reader’s interest from the first page to the last." Publishers Weekly (starred)

"McElwain cleverly expresses Donovan’s modernity and forensic expertise without betraying the concept of the series: Here is a character who is out of place in time, but still manages to get along in the 19th century, giving readers a blend of crime scene investigation and historical period color." Historical Novel Review