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Reviewed by Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite
In Chris Stevens’s Untimely Deaths, history teacher Dan Parker unwittingly discovers a mysterious brass time-travel device beneath the Harrington House Museum in New Chapel, Ohio, and his life spirals into chaos. What starts as a curious exploration quickly turns into a time-altering catastrophe when he travels back to 1947, builds a quiet life, falls in love with local waitress Lucy Rodgers, and becomes friends with the pleasant Jack Lawrence. Everything begins to collapse when people start getting murdered. Parker becomes a suspect and is hunted by the police. He realizes that staying in 1947 disrupts time itself, but can he prove his innocence in the murders, and what exactly does this have to do with his deranged ex-girlfriend, Carly Wells?
Untimely Deaths is a twisty first book in the New Chapel Mysteries series, featuring a masterful blend of noir mystery, time travel, and historical fiction. Chris Stevens creates a setting filled with period-authentic details, from the Alcomb Sanatorium to the bustling Bill’s Diner; he captures small-town voices without slipping into caricature. I love novels with a compelling sense of place, and this author delivers. The characters are memorable, and Lucy, depicted as a woman with grit, becomes the life of the story in many scenes as her relationship with Dan grows deeper. I enjoyed the clarity with which Dan’s curiosity is explored in this spellbinding story, the crisp prose, and the well-executed dialogue. The pacing is relentless as the glow of the time-travel machine fades and the body count increases. The sense of urgency, the suspense, and the intrigue in the plot transform this story into a page-turner.
