Wrong Place, Wrong Time - Gillian McAllister

Wrong Place, Wrong Time (389 pages) is the second book I've read with my amazing book club of “two and a half people.” This was Paty’s pick, and, as expected, I managed to finish it before the end of the month!

The story revolves around Jen, her husband Kelly, and their son Todd. Jen is waiting for her son to come home so they can celebrate his 18th birthday, but when she looks out the window, she sees Todd stabbing someone.

This leaves her completely shaken and in disbelief. After leaving the police station, she goes home and falls asleep, but even though she's a lawyer, she can't talk to her son because she’s a witness in the case.

When Jen wakes up, Todd is in the kitchen as if nothing ever happened. Confused, she realizes, after some strange conversations, that she is reliving the day before the crime. Not understanding what's happening, she tries to look for answers.

As the days pass, she realizes she's going back in time irregularly, but always to specific moments that need to be unraveled to complete the story and prevent her son from committing the crime.

However, as the days go back, Jen realizes that the situation is far more complex. She needs to discover something important but doesn’t know exactly what. (Spoiler alert): Jen discovers she knows almost nothing about her husband’s life—where his money comes from and what he actually does. She realizes that Kelly has a double life she never suspected.

(More spoilers): As she continues going back in time, Jen discovers that her husband is actually responsible for her son's actions. Kelly was involved in drug trafficking, which led Todd to kill one of the crime bosses.

Alongside Jen’s story, the book also tells the story of Ryan, whose identity is only revealed in the final pages. Ryan, a young aspiring police officer, infiltrates a gang to find out who the mafia boss is and take him down.

In the end, we find out that Ryan is actually Kelly, Jen's husband, who took on his brother’s identity after the brother took his own life following his involvement in the drug trade. Ryan falls in love with Jen the day he meets her, but the problem is that she’s the daughter of the gang's informant.

Jen’s father is the man who provides information on which houses will be empty so thieves can steal cars and send them to the Middle East. Ryan leaves the police force to be with Jen, but before that, he manages to arrest the mafia boss.

After 20 years in prison, the boss is released and resumes his business, seeking out Ryan to cooperate again. To avoid being killed for being an informant, Ryan resumes trafficking. Todd finds out everything and kills the drug dealer after learning that he was planning to kill his father.

Jen learns all of this when she goes back 20 years in time, to a day before meeting Kelly. She goes to the police station to report that a child will be kidnapped, and the police intervene, changing the course of her life. As a result, Kelly doesn’t manage to capture the crime boss and remains a police officer. Consequently, Todd doesn’t commit murder, and the child is not kidnapped.

Rating: 7/10. The book is quite easy to read, but I didn’t find anything particularly special about it. I did like how Jen comes to understand that her choices—such as not giving much attention to her son—were made with the intention of doing what was best for him. However, the ending was disappointing, with the hint that another boy’s mother would also start traveling back in time to prevent her son from being imprisoned for the kidnapping.