Poisoner’s Ring (A Rip through Time, Book 2)
The sophomore doldrums hit the Kelley Armstrong “modern police goes back to the past” detective series.
In this case, the story itself was reasonable serviceable. There is a poison ring of sorts (the type where lots of people are getting poisoned, presumably by a ring of folks, not the physical ring which contains poison) that is killing folks and the protagonist and her crew is out to solve this.
The book suffers mostly because the first book not only contained a half decent mystery to solve but also the struggles of a modern police being trapped in the late 19th century where women were not respected or thought of much more than ornamental pieces and baby making machines. This book really only has the mystery to deal with and a “will they/won’t they” mechanic that doesn’t really belong in the books.
The book also introduces more of the family that’s hosting the protagonist and you learn a bit more about her, and there’s a very minor twist to the whole ending, but I couldn’t really find myself caring too much about the mystery because it was dragged down by all the stuff that wasn’t central to the mystery. A few too many times there were a lot of text about who the poisoner really was, but it never really came to a head. There’s a few loose ends that were never discovered and the whole ending was a bit contrived.
All in all, this doesn’t make me want to read the last book, but i’ll probably do it sometime next year when I’m bored anyway. Mild pass from me.