"Disturbing the Dead" by Kelley Armstrong is a historical fiction and a murder mystery. It's set in 1890s Victorian Scotland. This is Book 3 in the Rip Through Time series, but it can be enjoyed as a stand-alone story. I had not read either of the first two books, but I really enjoyed this book anyway.

There is a time travel element in this - the main character, Mallory, is a police detective from modern times and has gone back in time via a near death experience. She ends up with her mind and spirit in the body of a maid at the home of Dr. Duncan Gray, an undertaker and medical examiner.

Apparently, in the last 2 books, they figured out Mallory wasn't Catriona Mitchell, the maid, despite being in her body. They know Mallory's secret, and she's been upgraded to Dr. Gray's assistant. She also assists the police detective, Hugh McCreadie. Isla is Gray's sister, and she is a chemist.

All four of them get invited to a mummy unwrapping party at Sir Alastair's mansion. At the time of the main event, the host, Sir Alastair, is missing. Dr. Gray and Mallory are requested to unwrap the mummy. They do so, and it's not an ancient Egyptian. Someone from the present time (1890s) has been murdered!

I found Mallory to be quite likable. She is intelligent and independent, and she speaks her mind. She is pretty snarky. Dr. Gray is kind and intelligent and rather stoic. The plot is intriguing. The story moved right along. I enjoyed it a lot. There are many humorous moments that amused me.

Characters - 5/5
Writing - 5/5
Plot - 4/5
Pacing - 4/5
Unputdownability - 4/5
Enjoyment - 5/5
Narration - 5/5 by Kate Handford
Cover - 5/5
Overall - 4.6/5

If you like time travel, historical fiction, and murder mysteries, check out this series! I look forward to reading more of them.

Thank you to Netgalley, MacMillan Audio, and Kelley Armstrong for providing this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Disturbing the Dead is the third book in the A Rip Through Time series which is a historical mystery/time travel combo and I absolutely love the series! The narrator was spot on and made this book so fun!

I love the FMC, who is a 21st Century detective. Mallory is finding her footing and her place in Victorian Scotland, and I loved the revisit of time travel in this installment with a short body swap allowing Mallory to find peace from her past and choose her future. I loved the easy banter and whit between characters as her and Dr. Grey have formed a fun lighthearted closer relationship. And Isja well I simply love her grit in an era not yet on par with woman and equality in the workplace or society as a whole. And oh Detective McCreadie well isn’t he a vigorous man (laughing so hard over that) we are starting to see how he feels about Isla and I hope that is further explored they both deserve happiness.

We get a brief peak at miss Jeks-Blake and the seven which starts off our current mystery with a "unwrapping" of a mummy, Victorians were fascinated by death and the macabre and I found myself laughing quite often as our sleuths try to figure out who killed the dead man and stoke the mummy remains. The team soon discover their actions and cases are being penned and sold as an early detective ongoing broadsheet being sold to the upper middle class in an early style reminiscent of a Sherlock Holmes and Watson kind of tail, only it seems overly dramatic and poorly written. I must say that really ties up nicely in the end and I’m dying to see how it moves forward in future books. And Jack wow! I did not see that coming and I’m dying to see it happening in the next books. And pants can’t ruin it but I’m excited for that as well 😂 go house Grey! Eccentric household no doubt.

I can’t say enough how much I enjoy this series! Please read it you won’t be disappointed.

I absolutely love the freshly blooming slow burn romance starting to move to the forefront with Mallory and Dr Duncan Gray. I'm excited and anxiously waiting for them to finally admit their true feelings. Hurry book 4 I can’t wait to read it. This series is truly the best and I highly recommend it! If you love time travel, the Victorian Era, a very good police procedural and a slow burn romance this is the series for you! It has the best of all the great things!

I am such a fan of Kelley Armstrong's Rip Through TIme series. I found her when she was writing her Pack series books and cannot wait for her next books, regardless of which series she is writing. In A Rip Through Time, we get another book about Detective Mallory Atkinson who is living in the body of Catriona Mitchell, a house maid in Victorian Scotland. Mallory's fascination with Sherlock Holms plus her own skills as a detective, lead her down some odd paths for what is a house maid on the surface. It doesn't hurt that Dr. Duncan Grey has taken her on as an assistant and feelings between the two are slowly developing further.

Mallory's newest case involves mummies and murder, with a host of complications. We also get to see more of the Edinburgh Seven, women that fought to be allowed to attend medical school.

I really like the way that Kelley Armstrong structures her books. There are several supporting subplots that weave together to bring surpising events to the main plot, and mummies in Victorian times certainly lend themselves to an engaging read. I can't wait to see what she does next with this series!

Kate Handford did a great job with the narration of this book. Her ability to bring a story to life through audio is on par with the best audio book you have ever listened to. I enjoyed her voice acting and was impressed that even listening to her at 2x speed was still an immersive experience.

Thank You St. Martin's Press, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the chance to review this wonderful book.

Mallory Atkinson was sucked back into time in someone else’s body. A homicide detective now a maid 150 years back in time. Her new case is who killed Sir Alastair Christie. Full of adventure she I just about solved the case when she was swept back to her own time. From help from her dying grandmother she was able to go back and help Mr. Gray solve the case and start to make a life with her new family.

Mallory and Gray are invited to a mummy unwrapping and while not to their taste they decide to attend. However, things do not go as planned as the mummy is not a mummy but the archeologist who discovered them. 

Mallory and Gray and thrust into a case involving missing ancient artifacts and antiquities, The Seven (a group of women who dared to attend medical school in this time), underground markets, Queen of the Fae, and someone writing an unauthorized account of their investigations. There is a major plot twist in toward the middle of the book that threw me for a loop and had me balling.  😭One of the best in this series so far. I loved it as I do with just about anything Kelley Armstrong writes. 

Filled with adventure and a modern woman's take on the past. I love that Gray and his family are so eccentric that a "normal" maid wouldn't fit in.  Most of their staff are from questionable backgrounds, so Mallory fits right in with her strange manners, and turns of phrase. Underlying all of these books is a thread of female empowerment, and not following the norm. 

Another excellent edition to this series.

For readers of Kelley Armstrong‘s A Rip Through Time series, this third book is a real game changer and put everything on the line! New readers to the series will get enough of the background to understand that modern day, Canadian detective Mallory Atkinson has fallen through time and is now in Victorian Scotland, where she works as a housemaid for the undertaker/medical examiner, doctor Duncan Gray.

I’ve loved this series since the beginning, but this one was especially unique with the inclusion of Victorian mummies as part of their mystery in this book. The crime fighting household of Dr. Gray is invited to a mommy unwrapping, where upon they find a modern day body, rewrapped in the mummy bandages!

Following the pattern set and the other books, Mallory and Dr. Gray, along with some other members of the household and their detective friends investigate and solve this mystery… but along with that, we get a lot more of Mallory struggle with her time shift and she has to make some some big decisions. A lot of character development occurs in this book for not just Mallory, but for Dr. Gray and his siblings.

The narration by Kate Handford is an excellent accompaniment to this story. She does a great job of including the modern connotations and dialect of Mallory along with a Victorian and Scottish accent for the rest of the Dr. Gray household. Her voice work really brings the story to life and emphasizes the drama as it unfolds!

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and MacMillan Audio for the review copies.

It is a face-paced story that has Mallory finding herself back in her own time. She is able to be there when her grandmother dies. Before shd does, she tells Mallory there is a way back to Victorian London if she wants it. Mallory has to face the choice of leaving her parents behind to be where she truly belongs or never seeing her friends again.

This is the third book in a series and I found out after reading it, the good news, I had no problem following the story at all.
So if you are looking for a historical mystery, with strong female characters and a twisty plot, this one is for you!

Thank you Minotaur Books and NetGalley for this gifted copy.

𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝗱 by Kelley Armstrong released May 7, 2024.

https://www.instagram.com/booksandcoffeemx/

I listened to the first in this series while sitting with my dying grandmother. It hit home then and continues to tug at my heart with every installment. I love the time travel and historical Scottish details. I love the quirky cast of characters living in Grey’s house and this mystery specifically focusing on the unwrapping of a mummy and medical students of the day was so unique. I just love these books. They incorporate real family and found family with a historical fiction and Sherlock Holmes twist. Highly recommend starting the series and enjoying them all- they just get better and better.

I really loved Armstrong's A Stitch in Time time travel romance series and this has elements of that, but the romance subplot is so drawn out in comparison. I was actually starting to feel like maybe this had settled down into a whodunit series until a plot twist about 50% in that sucked me back into the story. Now I'm looking forward to seeing where this ends up going.

Narration: I enjoyed the narration, even if this is not a narrator that I actively seek out.

Thanks to the Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for my copy to review.

This was fantastic! I am a huge fan of Kelley Armstrong’s writing and have had a lot of luck with this time travel series. This is the third installment in the Rip Through Time series, which really should be read in order since each book builds on the events from prior novels. I love a good time travel book, so I was surprised by just how original this series is. When Mallory went back in time, she found herself not only in a different time but in a different body. This story took a few turns that I did not expect which only added to my enjoyment.

Mallory, Dr. Grey, and their friends are invited to a mummy unwrapping. When the wrappings are removed, they find a very recent corpse instead of a mummy. They work to find out who is responsible for the man’s death and are feeling pressure from someone in a position of power. I always have a lot of fun watching Mallory, Dr. Grey, and the rest of the crew get to the bottom of a mystery; this was no expectation. I am starting to have hope that Mallory and Dr. Grey will soon be more than friends since they obviously have strong feelings for each other.

I listened to the audiobook and thought Kate Handford did an exceptional job with the narration. I liked the voices she used for the various characters and appreciated that it was always easy to know who was speaking in the story. I felt like she added just the right amount of emotion to her reading to bring this story to life. I am certain that her narration added to my overall enjoyment of this book.

I would recommend this book to others. The characters in the book are well-developed and very likable. I was invested in the story’s outcome and wanted to see good things happen. I can’t wait to read more of this wonderful series!

I received a review copy of this book from Minotaur Books and Macmillan Audio.

4.5 I am totally invested in all of these characters! The author has done an excellent job of making the reading feel like part of the crime-solving cadre. This unique series combines so many of my favorite things—a great cast of characters, a strong female lead, clever banter, mystery, thriller, time-travel, historical fiction, and of course, the macabre. I thoroughly enjoyed this installment in the series and love when a series answers most questions, even if it might raise a few more :)

I had such an unexpected visceral reaction to when Mallory makes it back to her time. I honestly had given up hope that would happen and then when it did, I shared a lot of feelings with our main character and was much more affected by it than I anticipated! Excellent writing.

If the author writes more novels in this series, sign me up immediately! This was a fun and captivating read, with crimes/mysteries that are fun to try to figure out along with our cast.

The audiobook narration is superb. I’ve listened to the audiobooks for all 3 and commend the narrator!

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Minotaur Books for providing me with an advanced copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Mallory Atkinson, a modern day detective, has found herself in 1860s Scotland. She has been invited to a mummy unwrapping party. Only to discover it is not a mummy…but a recently murdered body!

Let me preface this with I have been extremely sick this week. And I believe this is why I could not get into this book as well as I did with The Poisoner’s Ring. I kept zoning out during this one.

There is no better place to time travel to than 1800 Scotland. I love reading about the idiosyncrasies in this time period. I also enjoyed all the different situations Mallory found herself in. She would have to remind herself exactly where she was. But, she is on the case and she IS going to find the murderer!

The narrator, Kate Handford, did a very good job with all the voices.

Need a good time travel novel…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

Disturbing the Dead is the third book in the Rip Through Time historical mystery/ time travel series by Kelley Armstrong and it is just as enjoyable as the previous two books. It’s been six months since Mallory, a police detective officer in present day Vancouver, woke up in another woman’s body in Victorian Edinburgh after an assault. She has become more accustomed to her new life especially now that she has become Dr Duncan Grey’s assistant in his work with the police. This time they have been invited to the unwrapping of a mummy, a prospect both Mallory and Duncan find disgusting but it is not an invitation that can be ignored. When they arrive, the host seems to be unavailable so Duncan is coerced into doing the unwrapping, only to find, not a mummy inside, but the missing host. The ensuing investigation will take them to some dark places including an underground market where almost anything can be acquired if you have the right item to barter.

This book is compelling, well-written and perhaps the most macabre addition to the series, touching on some of the stranger aspects of Victorian life, not just their fascination with Egyptology but some rather disturbing folk remedies and I have to say I loved every minute of it. There are hints of more to come in the series and I am so looking forward to Mallory’s continued sojourn in the past. I received both an ebook and audiobook and read along while I listened. The audiobook is narrated by Kate Handford who does an excellent job including recreating the atmospheric feel surrounding much of the tale.

Thanks to Netgalley, St Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to enjoy this book in exchange for an honest review

Disturbing the Dead is the third in Kelley Armstrong's A Rip Through Time series. The series follows Detective Mallory Atkinson who has been transported back in time in the place of the maid Catriona Mitchell, who was left for dead in the very spot where Detective Atkinson was found strangled 150 years later. Not having read the first two books, it took me a bit to get into this book. Detective Atkinson/Catriona is again by the side of Dr. Gray. They are guests at an event in the home of Sir Alistair Christie. By the time the dead body of the host is found in place of the ancient Egyptian mummy that was being unwrapped in his home, I was completely hooked. I am looking forward to going back to 19th century Scotland to the beginning of Mallory/Catriona's adventures by reading the first two novels.

Wow! I might even say this surpasses book one!

Set in Victorian Scotland, this series captures all the grit and eeriness of the era. The setting is so vividly described that you can almost feel it. The murder mystery and investigations, while dark, are not excessively grotesque or graphic. Beyond the investigations, Mallory remains caught between two worlds. Without giving anything away, she encounters a 'what if' scenario that is quite moving. I found myself deeply empathetic towards her. What truly made this installment stand out for me, though, was the humor. It had me laughing out loud several times.

I'm uncertain about the series' duration, but I'm hopeful it will continue for a long while. I eagerly anticipate many more adventures with this ensemble.

Highly recommended for fans of Historical Fiction, Murder Mystery/Suspense, Time Travel, and the Victorian Era.

In disturbing the dead, a rip through time number three by Kelly Armstrong Mallory Atkins is settling into life in Scotland during the 1800s. She is becoming quite well known it’s not only a woman assistant to Dr. Gray but for her and Dr. Gray’s adventures in solving mysteries. She was well aware that people talked about her and Dr. Gray in their mysteries but was not prepared when going to a mummy unwrapping party that the children of the host would not only know her but be enamored of her and the good doctor. Win professor sir Alistair doesn’t show up for his own get together and is soon found dead Mallory knows they have found the next case but is ill prepared for where the case will lead them. Just like the last book the cases victims and perpetrators are caught up in a situation that we will be familiar to most history fans and once again Kelly Armstrong does a great job enter twining a popular event with the events of Mallory and Dr. Gray. They also get a new housemaid but like always not for long but the next one they choose is quite surprising. This was a great book Mallory learned something new about the letters she sent Dr. Gray comes close to professing… Something to Mallory I DK and here we go again I have to anxiously wait for the next one. I want to say I listen to the audiobook in the first two audiobooks I thought the narrator did a superb job it seems now she barely even tries to do Scottish accents having said that I still listen to the audiobook instead of reading the Kindle because she has such a nice voice but wish she would go back to doing Dr. Gray and the good detectives accents. I thought Jack was a great addition to the family. I also once again want to say kudos to Kelly Armstrong for her great achievement in making this is historical Lee accurate as possible. I said it before and I’ll say it again these books are from my favorite series I love them and cannot get enough and also definitely recommend this book. I listen to the audio and read the beginning on Kindle and both are real winners but thought the narrator has a great voice as always just wish she would’ve stepped it up with the accent it’s as if she is getting tired of doing it and I really hope that’s not the case. I want to thank McMillan audio for my free arc copy via netGalley please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

I have read the first and third book in the series. References made about what happened in book two were nicely done without the reader been confused. Got me interested enough to grab book two when I noticed it on sale. I really enjoyed the interactions between the various characters. In this book Mallory must make a challenging decision. If the force of time allows, which century will she decide to stay in? Will she, together with her employer and friends been able to safe an innocent man from hanging. Together with Mallory we learn about Victorian era attitudes towards Egyptian artifacts, the male doctors towards the woman wanting to study medicine, the class divides between the gentry and servants. In general, I am not a great fan of time travel, but Kelley Armstrong makes this story feel real to a point that I got a bit emotionally involved. Hoping for a book four in the series.
Having read the book and refreshed the story by listening to the Audio, it is hard to say which one I liked best. By reading you make your own view what the individual sound like. With a good Narrator as in this case you even get a stronger feel of the character coming through. Great job.

This is a terrific book!!
A time traveling murder mystery that gave me Sherlock vibes and had me completely absorbed into the story! Third book in this series, and honestly, my first read. I had absolutely no issue catching on. The author does an amazing job re-capping pertinent details seemlessly into the story flow, making me feel like I hadn't missed a thing.
The audio narration was so well done and enjoyable!
I can't wait for more in this series, and I'm definitely going to be reading the books that I missed!!

After stumbling onto this book I ended up binge listening the entire series. I enjoy the characters and the development of their relationships with one another. I find them all endearing (for the most part). It’s refreshing to listen to true YA without gruesome details and spice. Some social topics are addressed , each to a varying degree which is noticeable but not overwhelming or inappropriate.
I was taken in by the mystery and entertaining complications of traveling back in time.