Early Review – Disturbing the Dead (A Rip Through Time, Book 3) by Kelley Armstrong (4/5 stars)

Reading Level:Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction/Time Travel
Length: 341 pages
Publisher:‎ Minotaur Books
Release Date: May 7, 2024
ASIN: B0CG4KDR8C
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd book in the A Rip Through Time series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Victorian Scotland is becoming less strange to modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson. Though inhabiting someone else’s body will always be unsettling, even if her employers know that she’s not actually housemaid Catriona Mitchell, ever since the night both of them were attacked in the same dark alley 150 years apart. Mallory likes her job as assistant to undertaker/medical examiner Dr. Duncan Gray, and is developing true friends—and feelings—in this century.

So, understanding the Victorian fascination with death, Mallory isn’t that surprised when she and her friends are invited to a mummy unwrapping at the home of Sir Alastair Christie. When their host is missing when it comes time to unwrap the mummy, Gray and Mallory are asked to step in. And upon closer inspection, it’s not a mummy they’ve unwrapped, but a much more modern body.”

Series Info/Source: This is third book in the A Rip Through Time series. I got an eGalley of this to review through NetGalley.

Thoughts: This is the third book in the A Rip Through Time series and I think it was the best book in this series by far.

Gray and Mallory are invited to a mummy unwrapping party hosted by Sir Alastair Christies, an Egyptian explorer. However, when Alastair doesn’t show up, the crowd asks Gray to employ his skills as a surgeon and do the unwrapping. Unfortunately, the mummy that they unwrap is not nearly as old as they thought it was going to be. Suddenly, they are wrapped up (ha, ha) in yet another Victorian murder mystery.

I love that we get a bit more information around the time travel story line. I also really enjoyed the mummy mystery. I didn’t rate this 5 stars because I do still find some portions of the story to be slow. At times there is just a bit too much police procedural type data for me.

I continue to really love the characters in this series. I was excited by the events that happened to Mallory and hope that we can get a bit more explanation around why they happened and also hope that Mallory can start to move past some of the uncertainty in her Victorian life now.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I really enjoyed this installment in this series much more than previous installments in the series. I loved that the time travel storyline makes more progress here. I also enjoyed the mummy themed murder mystery a lot more than previous mysteries. I do feel like parts of the story still move a bit slow for me. Sometimes there is just too much police procedural detail and I end up skimming those parts. However, I do feel like this book in the series had much more consistent pacing than previous books in the series.