Author A.G. Riddle has previously been described as a blend between Michael Crichton and Dan Brown and you can see why when the synopsis of his latest book, Lost In Time covers dinosaurs and conspiracy.
When Nora, one of the inventors of the time travelling device, Absolom, is discovered murdered in her home, all eyes are on her partner (and one of the other founders) Sam. Despite proclaiming his innocence, in the face of overwhelming evidence, Sam is quickly convicted and sentenced to a fate worse than death. He is to be placed in the Absolom device and transported back in time to the Triassic period to an alternate dimension to live out the rest of his days alone (except for the dinosaurs obviously).
While Sam battles prehistoric predators, back in the present day, his teenage daughter Adelaide seems to be his only hope for uncovering the real murderer. However, even if Sam is cleared, the Absolom scientists claim to have no way to bring him back. But with each of them hiding their own dark secrets, Adelaide’s first challenge has to be working out who she can trust.
Lost In Time begins as a fantastically constructed murder mystery, a wonderful whodunnit where every suspect becomes more suspicious with every page turn. When the added complexity of time travel arrives, author A.G. Riddle is given permission to cycle through various genre gears; a trick executed with a gentle ease that never leaves the reader behind. Equal parts frenetic survival thriller and intelligent sci-fi study, Riddle’s beautifully linear storytelling is a welcome change from more traditional time travel tales. By anchoring the story in the present, readers are left to feel the full force of the rug pulled out from under them when it happens (again and again). Rest assured, this is primarily a murder mystery and there are red herrings and twists a-plenty.
Fans of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary will enjoy the entertaining riffs on ‘man of science’ vs nature, while those who love a near-future evil-corporation story will be sucked in with the elegant conceit of the Absolom device. A time travel machine once intended for commercial gain and convenience that has now been manipulated into a crime deterrent akin to the nuclear warhead… and of course sold to the highest bidder.
While some unforgiving readers may hear alarm bells ringing at the more clunky sections of exposition and strange decision-making from certain characters, as the book gains speed and turns its first (of many) corners, you soon realise it’s all been put there to wrong-foot you. You may be falling through time and trying to second guess the rulebook, but Riddle’s macro explorations of causality and collective responsibility are gifted with a swift confidence that keeps the pace of the story from ever deviating from its primary thread.
The idea of not just stranding someone in time, but in an alternate timeline with no hope of return should lend the story to carry an underlying tone of unfathomable horror, yet instead Lost In Time embroils you so completely in a time travel thriller, spiced with such delicious twists, that you’ll be too busy trying to guess your way through before you realise the ending was there all along.
Lost In Time by A.G Riddle is out now.