Back in 2020, Lily Jones can’t keep her mind off her leap, sorry, hop through time back to 1950s Hollywood and Louis, the barman she fell in love with and then abandoned to return to the present day. Finally giving into her curiosity, she starts Googling the people she met, and discovers that Louis’ ex-girlfriend, Evelyn, was brutally murdered in 1953.

After managing to recreate the time-jump, sorry, time-hop, she finds that she seems to have arrived three years early. But Evelyn’s fiancé has just been arrested, and, reunited with Louis and his sister, Lily decides that she needs to prove his innocence. After all, there must be a good reason that she has come back to 1950…

And I’m back to the shortlist for the CWA Whodunnit Dagger and I’m delighted to say, this one is actually a Whodunnit! Well done, the judges. Three out of four read so far that actually meet the fundamental criteria for a Whodunnit mystery, namely someone has done something and we don’t know who it is. Note, in case this hasn’t translated well into print, I am being sarcastic here…

Anyway, back to this book. I enjoyed the first book, The Mysterious Double Death Of Honey Black, so I was curious how this would play out. And I suppose the best thing I can say is that if you liked that one, you like this one. I did (and did).

The celebrity cameo quota has been cranked up a bit, and the less you think about the time-travelling and the repercussions, the better. We’re sidestepping around any notion of stepping on a butterfly here. We’ve also established that Lily isn’t going to be in a relationship with her best friend in the future, who may be a descendant of Louis, so we’ve dodged the Philip J Fry bullet. And yes, Futurama fans, I know that the Fry thing isn’t anywhere near as “simple” as sleeping with your own grandson, but thankfully we’ve sidestepped that.

This time, we’re heading out of Hollywood and off to 1950’s Vegas, so cue the mob, Frank Sinatra cameos, etc. The resolution of why Lucy needs to come back to 1950 to save Evelyn three years later is quite clever, there are some nice surprises, and as I said, this is a proper whodunnit.

Unfortunately for the armchair sleuth, especially one who read The Mysterious Death Of Honey Black, I felt the villain was hidden in exactly the same way as in that book and not quite as well. I know, I’ve read too many mysteries* but if Captain Obvious was in Book One, he’s got a promotion since then. Admiral Obvious? To me, at least – I’d love a second opinion from someone.

At the end of the day though, I really enjoyed this one, as much as the first one in fact. Yes, the mystery isn’t desperately taxing, but it’s a page turner with a nice relationship and at the end of the book, I want to know what happens next. That ticks most of the boxes, so why not give the series a try.

*No such thing, obviously…