Lost in Time – A.G. Riddle
Head of Zeus Publishing
416 Pages
Ever since my first trips to the Lockport Public Library when I was a kid, the science-fiction novels were always a go to for me, especially the ones that involved time travel. Whenever I see a new time travel story, it ends up on my reading list. So, when I saw Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle, I had to make sure that it came home with me. It’s apparently a fairly popular book as it took a few weeks to end up on the shelves at the library. Once it was, I was all over it. And then I read it in a single day.
In the near future, a group of scientists and inventors, while attempting to work out a way to instantly transport items that would normally have to be shipped, discovered they could send things to a very distant past in an alternate universe. What practical use could this have? The government utilizes this technology and the company to transport violent criminals to banishment in the age of the dinosaurs. In that place they could use their wiles to survive, but they would not impact society negatively any longer.
One of the inventors, Sam Anderson, discovers that one of his fellow scientists and love interest has been murdered. All evidence points to either he or his nineteen year old daughter, Adeline having committed the foul deed. Sam, in order to protect his daughter, confesses to the murder and is banished to a life 205 million years in the past through the very machine that he helped invent. From the point that he disappears from the transfer chamber, it’s Adeline’s mission to find a way to rescue her father from his one way trip.
The extreme past is a very dangerous time for humans. As an educated man, Anderson may be better able to survive some of the hurdles the flora and fauna of the past would throw in his way. From volcanoes to dinosaurs to other outcast criminals, it’s no easy life for Anderson. Danger lurks in every shadow.
Meanwhile, Adeline is thrust into a murder mystery worthy of Christie and Doyle. Who can she trust, and what is the truth? She faces her own obstacles from friend and foe alike. Her perseverance drives her towards an unlikely reunion with her father.
Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle is a fantastic book. A modern murder mystery sets the reader through the past, present, and future. Strong characters drive the narrative. It’s a fun story with science and murder linked. I could not put it down once I started. I made it through the whole thing in only a few hours. Riddle’s writing is almost lyrical and it lulls you into wanting to keep reading more. By the time the end rolls around, you’re almost disappointed. Can’t there be more? Can we stay with these people a little longer?
This book was most definitely a throwback to those books that I loved during my formative years of adult reading. It had a taste of “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury. It had the science of Asimov and Clarke. And it had a bit of Agatha Christie. All of this made it one of my favorite books of the year. It makes me want to beg my library to get more books by Riddle. I need to read more.
If you’re like me and loved those science fiction masters back in the 1970s and 1980s, Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle is the book for you. This was so much fun to read. This book gets one of my highest recommendations. You will want more A.G. Riddle.
Craig Bacon is a science fiction freak. If it wasn’t for history, science fiction would be his life.
Originally published on Niagara’s Water Cooler. Republished with permission.
