TL;DR Review: Harry Dresden meets Groundhog Day. A murder mystery solved in just one day…over and over and over again.
Synopsis:
Adair Finch is the most powerful warlock in the world, and one of the best private investigators for hire.
He has dealt with corporate vampires, murderous werewolves, and even fae royalty. Everything was perfect until he lost one case—the case where he also lost his brother.
So Finch retired. From magic. From PI work. From everything.
Bree Blackstone, a twelve-year-old witch, doesn’t know or care about any of that except Finch’s reputation. In the middle of the night, she bangs on Finch’s door. Her mother has been murdered, and now the assassin is after Bree as well.
Reluctantly, Finch agrees to help, only to discover something sinister has been brewing in town while he ignored the world… He’ll need to dust off all his old skills and magic before it’s too late.
Full Review:
Adair Finch is exactly the sort of character you’d expect to meet in an urban fantasy detective story: dirty, messy, grumpy, and damned good at what he does. The death of his brother has stopped him from doing P.I. work, and the last thing he wants is to help when twelve-year-old Bree Blackstone shows up at his front door. But, despite his gruff exterior and rude manners, it’s clear that he’s got a bit of a soft spot, so he really has no choice but to help. Together, they set off to investigate the scene of her mother’s murder and father’s disappearance, then follow the clues until…well, let’s just say things end with the wrong people getting killed.
But no worries: Finch has a bond with Chronos, god of time, and can use his powers to travel back to the exact moment he “marked” (mentally or magically)—which in the case of this day, is 4:34 AM when Bree hammered on his door.
So he wakes up, finds Bree crying outside his apartment, and sets out to do it all over again. And again. And again. Because every mistake he makes, every lead he finds, every thread he follows, he can simply rewind time and start the day all over again, with a bit more information than he had on his last try.
In true Groundhog Day fashion, this story takes place over the course of a single day, played on repeat. Only Finch and Bree know they’re in this magical time loop, which means everything around them happens to everyone else for the first time every time. This is played to great effect, adding both humor and intrigue, but also hastening the solving of the mystery.
What I really loved was the time Finch didn’t spend solving the crime. After knowing how much pain Bree is in, he does little things to help her recover—taking her on a shopping spree, knowing reversing time will erase those credit card charges; spending a few days playing video games and relaxing; giving them time to sit in a coffee shop and enjoy a pastry. No time is taken away from solving the mystery because as Finch repeatedly says, “We have all the time in the world.”
The character dynamic between Finch and Bree is exactly what you’d expect (and what you will love) from a story of this type. Grumpy loner meets sunshine-y (sometimes annoyingly so) young person who is suffering, and by helping her, he gets drawn out of his own shell. The character work is simple but no more is needed because you already know what kind of relationship you want to evolve between these two, and you enjoy seeing it happen despite Finch’s best efforts.
Along the way, you learn a great deal more about the various types of magical beings and wielders, come to understand the system that powers the magic of the world, and, most importantly, get drawn into a bigger, wider mystery that promises intrigue and danger the deeper we dive.
Time-Marked Warlock treads some very new ground in its use of time-travel magic, but stays true to everything we love about this style of story (a la The Mandalorian, The Witcher, and The Professional). It’s a wonderful foray into urban fantasy and I can’t wait to see where this series takes us on more timey-wimey adventures!
Leave a Reply