Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Running Time-T.J. MacGregor

Running Time
T.J. MacGregor
Pinnacle, Nov 2008, $6.99
ISBN: 9780786018338

Time travel exists as a fledgling science. People experiment with the boundaries testing how far they can push the past. A government agency SPOT (Special Operational Temporal) filled with black ops were using the new technique to go back in history to dump dissidents, subversives and anyone undesirable in our time. In the 1970s Catherine Walgreen disappeared into Blue River, Massachusetts of 1695.

Her daughter Nora, her significant other Alex Kincaid, and four others who were part of the program before turning rogue are in hiding; each has a biochip implanted in them so they can move through time. Powerful individuals wanting to start up SPOT again are searching for the sextet because they possess a vast supply of the chips that the SPOT enthusiasts do not have and desperately need. The six are determined to keep the cache away from their enemies.

Alex and Nora travel back in time hoping to rescue her mother and end up in the middle of the witch hysteria flamed by the local preacher. For some unknown reason they cannot revert back to their twenty-first century normal time. When Nora is kidnapped and tortured by the insane preacher, another person form the future on the wrong side of the fight, goes back in time seeking redemption by stopping the pending slaughter.

The men, women, and one dog know their lives will never be normal because of what they know, have done, and possess; each understands they will spend their lifetimes looking back over their shoulders. The book is filled with action, extremely complex at times (no pun intended) to track as the plot is far from linear, and loaded with courageous heroes and cruel villains. As always T.J. MacGregor provides an exciting thriller with a cast who are literally RUNNING TIME (also see KILL TIME).
Harriet Klausner

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