Title: Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Author: Gillian McAllister
Publisher: Michael Joseph

Synopsis:

Can you stop a murder after it’s already happened?

Late October. After midnight. You’re waiting up for your seventeen-year-old son. He’s late. As you watch from the window, he emerges, and you realize he isn’t alone: he’s walking toward a man, and he’s armed.

You can’t believe it when you see him do it: your funny, happy teenage son, he kills a stranger, right there on the street outside your house. You don’t know who. You don’t know why. You only know your son is now in custody. His future shattered.

That night you fall asleep in despair. All is lost. Until you wake…

…and it is yesterday.

And then you wake again…

…and it is the day before yesterday.

Every morning you wake up a day earlier, another day before the murder. With another chance to stop it. Somewhere in the past lies an answer. The trigger for this crime—and you don’t have a choice but to find it…

My review:

This is hands down my favourite book of the year so far – and I’ve read some great books in 2022. Wrong Place, Wrong Time manages to combine so many elements I love in a book: mystery, twists you genuinely don’t see coming, a convincing main character, and – if it can’t be super realistic – an element of fantasy/ sci-fi that I REALLY enjoy: time travel! I always find the idea of being able to travel back in time to change something so intriguing – and what effects would this have on the future?

Wrong Place, Wrong Time follows Jen as she waits anxiously for her teenage son to return home in the early hours one morning. As he does, she sees him take out a knife and stab a man, right in front of their house. The trauma that follows that day turns into complete confusion when Jen wakes up the next morning and none of it happened. But not only that, she’s woken up the day before the stabbing…

On top of the addictive time travel element in Wrong Place, Wrong Time, there’s lots in here about families and relationships, and how we might not really know those closest to us. The story obviously follows along with Jen’s timeframe as she moves further and further backwards in time but we also see glimpses back into Jen’s memories as we see Jen and her husband’s younger lives.

There are SO many brilliant twists in this novel, I couldn’t quite believe it – and I was amazed at the quality. It never felt like the twists were too predictable, or in there just for the sake of it. I raced through the whole book in no time and would have happily read much, much more.

It also doesn’t hurt, of course, that Gillian McAllister’s writing is impeccable. I also loved the three other novels by her that I’ve read, having given them ALL 5 stars (That Night, Anything You Do Say and Everything but the Truth), so I had high hopes for this book and it lived up to them and much more. It’s unique, thrilling and absolutely brilliant!

My rating: 5/5

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