Review: Fascinating Novel Places Readers in Backwards Time Period!

The 13th Hour


By Richard Doetsch
Atria Books
ISBN: 9781439147917
338 Pages



What a fascinating novel! First warning--be prepared to concentrate while reading this book. Why, because it goes backwards! Believe me, it is not as easy to keep track of what is happening while you go backwards...

Especially when each hour brings changes to the past, brought on by what the main character has done...

The 13th Hour, by Richard Doetsch, brings you a thriller like no other! Don't Miss This!

Readers begin reading Chapter 12 where the police, who believe he has murdered his wife, are questioning the main character, Nicholas Quinn. In front of him is a jewel-encrusted pistol crafted in 1872 that was used to kill Julia.

The one thing you will learn as you read this book is that love is more powerful than anything!

A plane crash has occurred in town and most of the police are there on the site. While Nicholas is waiting, a man shows up who claims he is Quinn's lawyer, so he is allowed to meet with him. However, Nicholas has never met him, but thinks his best friend has perhaps sent him. Marcus had been there shortly after Nicholas had found Julia.

But the man is there to deliver a letter and a watch to Nicholas. He tells Nicholas that he can still save Julia!

The clock he now has will move Nicholas back one hour, on the hour. He will have the opportunity to find out what is happening and prevent Julia's murder. The only thing is, Nicholas will be the only one who knows that he is moving backwards while everybody else is in that particular hour! Cool, right? Wellll,

What happens is that every time Nicholas does something, it changes history and the events that had already happened. Soon he realizes that when he changes history one way, Julia is just killed in another way! Because Julia is a main character in this story. She is the one who holds information about a robbery that took place at her client's home and she is one of the only individuals who can get into the house, can get to the information on the computers, and, indeed, has had it submitted to her PDA as an emergency backup...And it is certainly strange to have her dead in one hour and alive in another, only to risk death in another hour...well you get the idea...

So, you have a murder committed at the 12th hour, sometime after a robbery took place and sometime before or after a major plane crash happened that day. You got it! Only Nicholas can save the day!

Frankly, you just have to read this for the experience of moving backward in time... It is a strange and intriguing period of time travel like no other! Don't miss The 13th Hour by Richard Doetsch!

G. A. Bixler