‘Time Lost’ is the second book in the ‘Out of Time’ series, set three years after the first volume ended. It is now 2044, the Temporal Research Institute is still working on researching past events, and Dieter and Janos have become an established team working in different departments. The focus of this sequel is the mystery of the institute leader’s disappearance, and the two men who are most closely involved in figuring out what happened. Jacob is a police detective who has no idea what minefield he has stumbled into with this case, and Kit is one of the lead engineers who works on the time portal technology but gets pulled into trying to figure out what new project Sanders, the vanished leader, was working on. This novel is full of incredible challenges, moral dilemmas, decisions that lead to potential disaster, and a well constructed and intriguing time travel-related mystery that defies description. You have to read it to believe it!

Jacob is an excellent police detective, but this case has him confused from the beginning. Of course, as an outsider, he has no idea time travel exists and what the TRI is up to, but he isn’t stupid. The questions just keep piling up, he is sure the TRI people he talks to are hiding something, and then there’s Kit, the quirky engineer they send to help him figure out the cybernetic eye they found on the dead intruder. Jacob is interested from the moment they meet, and despite the rules against getting involved with people who are part of an ongoing investigation, Jacob falls right into bed with Kit.

Kit just wants to work on the technology of the time portal, and when Sanders vanishes, he is shocked. But it isn’t just the loss of a mentor he respected that has him worried, it’s the fact that he is suddenly right in the middle of trying to solve a crime while not allowed to tell anyone outside the institute what they are really up to. Kit is also extremely attracted to the older detective, and pushes for more without thinking about the consequences.

Kit and Jacob are in so much trouble from the very start. Initially Kit tries to help Jacob solve the case as much as he can, but there isn’t much he can do. Jacob tries to hold back because he knows that if he gets caught sleeping with Kit his career is over – yet he can’t stay away from him because Kit is the only engineer who can deal with the extremely advanced technology they keep finding. The emotional push and pull, the back-and-forth in their developing relationship is intense, and added to the increasingly complicated mystery this made for quite an exciting read. To see the human side to time travel, once again, presented in such stark terms was heartbreaking and fascinating at the same time.

If you like time travel and the associated headaches that seem to come with it, if you’re interested in the human side of what happens when you start to mess with time – no matter how careful you are, and if you’re looking for a read that is an intensely emotional love story and a fascinating mystery with lots of clues and an unexpected resolution, then you will probably like this novel as much as I do. It’s a great story, and I can’t wait to see what happens next!


NOTE: This book was provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews. ( )