"Terrific time travel thriller"

By the year 2207, technology for time travel is available but it is strictly monitored and a person must have permission to go back in time. The technology was developed from an item in a time capsule buried in 1985 in a small Kentucky town. When an unauthorized person transits back to 2005 where the time travel is buried, FBI agent Nikita Stover is sent back to retrieve the person and make sure the capsule is buried so that it can be found in the future.

Police officer Knox Davis doesn't believe Nikita is a FBI agent so she has to show him things that don't exist in his time to prove she is a time traveler and a Fed from 2207. The person who came to 2005 from the future is killing people who witnessed the burying of the time capsule and is trying to terminate Nikita. She believes there is a traitor in her agency but the biggest danger is not to her life but to her heart because she is falling for Knox who is beginning to love her and is desperate to keep her alive. Nikita is afraid that when she tells him the truth about her origins, he will turn away from her in disgust.

This is a very different type of thriller that Linda Howard has written, one that involves time travel and a heroine who is not an alpha. She is a vulnerable woman, unsure of herself but she has courage and the ability to adapt to an environment that is very alien to her. There is plenty of action in KILLING TIME but the strength of this novel lies in the developing relationship of the two protagonists.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted June 15, 2005

Summary

Linda Howard returns to the entrancing, supernatural territory of her bestsellers Dream Man and Son of the Morning in her sizzling new novel.

In 1985, a time capsule was buried in the front lawn of a small town courthouse, to be reopened in 2085. But just twenty years later, in the middle of the night, the capsule is dug up and its contents stolen. That same night, one of the contributors to the capsule is brutally slain in his home—with no sign of forced entry or indication of a stuggle. Then one by one, the other time capsule contributors are murdered.

Other than the sudden, mysterious appearance of the intriguing Nikita Stover, the local police have absolutely no leads. And while Nikita's no murderer, it's true she has plenty of secrets. With more at stake than anyone else realizes,the smart-talking Nikita is determined to catch this cunning killer...while at the same time battling her own deepening feelings for a man and a world in which she does not belong.