The Frozen People

In this police procedural with a huge twist, Ali Dawson works for a London police department that purports to solve cold cases. These cases are so cold they’re truly frozen, hence the department’s nickname and the book’s title. But the team’s real purpose is to send detectives back in time to solve crimes. An Italian scientist is behind the technicalities of it all, and the officers themselves have only a vague idea of how it works, but no matter. They’ve now visited the past several times, at first leaving the COVID era to go back to just before the pandemic, and then visiting past decades. But now a government minister wants to prove his ancestor innocent of a crime, a job that will send Ali back to Victorian London. Visiting Ali’s own city, but a vastly different version of it, is as fascinating for readers as it is for the sleuth, but all goes awry when she can’t get back, and her son—their relationship is a highlight of the book—is accused of murder in the present day. Griffiths provides just enough of the intricacies of time travel to keep things interesting without bogging the narrative down with physics, creating a fresh new series that will leave readers wanting more