After surviving an attack that nearly leaves her dead, Kirby is determined to catch the man responsible. Unknown to her, the serial killer Harper can travel through time, making him particularly difficult to catch. She gets help from Dan, a sports reporter who used to cover crime.

Beukes does a good job of characterization, quickly letting us know who people are without using a lot of words. There’s a lot of great details like the dinosaur diorama Kirby makes in her apartment when she’s bored or the fact police stations that can’t afford one-way glass instead shine spotlights into the eyes of men in a police lineup to prevent them from seeing the witnesses. There are funny lines such as “baseball isn’t as tediously repetitive as murder.”

Kirby thinks baseball is boring because it’s always the same thing, but Dan points out movies and books are the same. “There are only so many plots in the world. It’s how they unfold that makes them interesting.” I’m not a fan of baseball, but Dan makes a good case for it. “It’s grown men having fun. Getting caught up in something. Like being a kid again.”

One of the ways Harper knows what time period he’s in is observing how open or defensive strangers are on the street and how much they keep to themselves. He’s not able to travel before 1929 or after 1993. One scene made me nostalgic for mosh pits.

Beukes flips the typical serial killer story around by giving us the killings from the victim’s point of view and letting us get to know each victim before they’re killed. Rather than being a source for clues, each victim is a character in their own right. We learn more about their lives than their deaths. Some of the characters we meet include an African American single mom who was a welder in World War II, an architect accused of being a Communist in the 1950s, a trans burlesque dancer, and an abortion provider.

Beukes did a lot of research into radium girls, police work, newspapers, the 1990s alternative music scene, Chicago zines, 1930s restaurants, 1980s toys, protein science, and more. This book is an absolute masterpiece. Highly recommended.