From the New York Times bestselling author of The Club comes a gripping mystery about time travel tourism and the dangerous consequences which ensue when the privileged make the past their playground. Mercurial tech entrepreneur Inigo Frank has perfected commercial time travel, though it is tightly regulated and so expensive that it's open only to the very wealthiest. His company, Tempus Tours, has so far been approved for just one route: a journey back to London in 1941, to the days of the Blitz, allowing the super-rich to experience the awesome sights and sounds of the aerial bombardment of the capital during World War II. It's a slick operation-routes across the wartime city are meticulously plotted, guides are extensively trained, and rules for the time tourists are strictly enforced. To immortalize his achievement, Frank enlists award-winning filmmaker Phoebe Hunt to create a fly-on-the-wall documentary. On her first day shadowing Inigo, she is set to witness the return of a billionaire property developer and his family from their trip to the past. But instead of their awe-filled return, she captures the group arriving bloodied and traumatized, with one of their number missing. Not only that, but Phoebe recognizes the missing woman, and knows not only that she's not who she claims to be but that she has every reason to harbor a grudge against her. And as events begin to unravel in the present day, it seems increasingly clear that she had sinister motives for returning to the past-and that people close to Phoebe are in danger. Phoebe must race to untangle the truth-before past and the future are rewritten. With this inventive, propulsive and genre-bending page turner, the bestselling author of The Club and The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby once again delivers an enthralling tale of legacy and wealth, history and technology with a gripping mystery at its core.
"Louise Brealey guides this time-travel mystery with a controlled, atmospheric performance that suits its shifting layers of danger and uncertainty. Filmmaker Phoebe Hunt has a corporate gig to create a documentary about touristy time travel, but things go awry with a billionaire family's jaunt to WWII-era London. When Phoebe realizes she may have a personal connection to the unfolding crisis, Brealey conveys her growing alarm. Brealey gives the supporting characters individual vocal personas, which makes it easy to follow along as the story moves between contemporary London and the events of 1941. Brealey builds a sense of unease through measured pauses and subtle changes in intensity.
Listeners will be drawn into questions of privilege, technology, and the consequences of interfering with history."
