Killing Time by Linda Howard Review
Ballantine Books, June, 2005Hardcover, 330 pages
ISBN: 034545345X
Ordering information:
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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.
Return to the July 2005 issue of The IWJ.
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