A sci-fi time-traveling mystery comedy of errors that’s funny, romantic, and suspenseful, with lots of historical and literary references. Ned Henry is time-lagged from all the drops he’s been doing to the 1940s, looking for an ugly Victorian-era relic that belonged to Coventry Cathedral before it was bombed in WWII. The head of the restoration project, Lady Schrapnell, has the entire Oxford time-travelling department in an uproar, sending every able-bodied historian to discover every insignificant wrinkle of the cathedral before it’s destruction.
Verity Kindle, another historian, is following around an ancestor of Lady Schrapnell, attempting to discover where and what the relic macguffin looks like. During a routine check-in to the future, Verity inadvertently brings back something through the net, which is supposed to be impossible and has potential universe-imploding implications. Ned is tasked with taking the item back to the past, but he’s so befuddled from all the time-travelling he’s been doing, that he misses his instructions. Within an hour of his arrival, he’s boating on the Thames with an Oxford student, to say nothing of the dog.
With references to Holmes, Poirot, and great historical battles, Ned and Verity must set the space-time continuum to rights, despite jumble sales, fortune tellers, penwipers, and two people in love who shouldn’t be. Also, the butler did it.
“Come here, cat. You wouldn’t want to destroy the space-time continuum, would you? Meow. Meow.”