ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths is published by Quercus and is out now. My thanks to the publishers for the fabulous proof package.

Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old, they’re frozen – or so their inside joke goes. Most people don’t know that they travel back in time to complete their research.

The latest assignment sees Ali venture back farther than they have dared before: to 1850s London in order to clear the name of Cain Templeton, the eccentric great-grandfather of MP Isaac Templeton. Rumour has it that Cain was part of a sinister group called The Collectors; to become a member, you had to kill a woman…

Fearing for her safety in the middle of a freezing Victorian winter, Ali finds herself stuck in time, unable to make her way back to her life, her beloved colleagues, and her son, Finn, who suddenly finds himself in legal trouble in the present day.

Could the two cases be connected?

Set your clocks to February 2025 and get ready for an original, transportive and characterful new crime novel from no. 1 bestselling author Elly Griffiths. Perfect for those missing the Dr Ruth Galloway series and for any crime and historical fiction fans.

Being a lover of time travel I had a strong feeling I would love this book and love it I did. The Frozen People is a perfect blend of historical, crime and time travel fiction, with a story that held me in its thrall.

As the blurb tells us, some murders can’t be solved in just one lifetime. Ali Dawson is a police officer working as part of a team investigating cold cases. Most police officers would do this through research and perhaps new information or advances in DNA, but Ali’s team do it through time travel. However, they’ve never been so far back as Ali is about to travel, to 1850, to find out if a man named Cain Templeton really was a murderer. Unfortunately for Ali, she is unable to make her way back to 2023 as she expected to and even worse, her son is in trouble while she’s stuck in Victorian London.

The Frozen People is crammed with multi-layered masterful plot work that I found myself marvelling at. I’m often filled with wonder at the glorious circularity of time travel, the way that people in the present day find out something that happened in the past and go back to make it happen. It blows my mind. This book has some wonderful moments like that.

I’m thrilled that this is the beginning of a new series from Elly Griffiths. Whilst some of the story was wound up, there were some strands of the plot that were left open and I’m eager to know what happens next. I loved the characters, especially Ali with her vivid red hair and her ‘take no prisoners’ attitude. The settings were so vibrant and I was transported to Victorian London, so well-described were the sights and smells that Ali experienced. This book offers mysteries to be solved in an extraordinary way and is exceptionally good.

Elly Griffiths is the bestselling author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries and the Brighton Mysteries. She has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, has been shortlisted five times for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for The Lantern Men. Her new series featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur began with The Stranger Diaries, which was a Richard and Judy book club pick and won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in the USA. It was followed by The Postscript Murders, shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and Bleeding Heart Yard. Elly has two grown-up children and lives near Brighton with her archaeologist husband.