ARC Review: An Ordinary Sort of Evil by Kelley Armstrong

An Ordinary Sort of Evil
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: A Ripped Through Time Novel (Book 5)
Publication: Minotaur Books (May 19, 2026)

Description: New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong returns to Victorian Scotland in the latest in the genre-blending Rip Through Time series.

Modern-day homicide detective Mallory Mitchell has grown accustomed to life in Victorian Scotland after travelling 150 years into the past into the body of a housemaid. She’s built a new life for herself. Even though she works as an assistant to forensic-science pioneer Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie, she considers them true friends. And with Gray in particular, perhaps, someday, something more.

Late one night, Gray and Mallory are summoned urgently to the home of Lady Adler, a patron of Gray’s undertaking business, and they assume there's been a death in the household. But instead, they arrive in the midst of a seance with a ghost demanding Gray's presence. The ghost is Lady Adler's former maid, who had gone missing but now requests that Gray investigate her murder. Although Gray and Mallory are skeptical, they agree to look into the matter, whether she's dead or alive. But unsure if there's been a murder or not, unable to call out the medium as a fraud, and concerned for the fate of the young maid, Gray and Mallory are once again drawn into a mystery much more puzzling--and more dangerous--than it first seems.

My Thoughts: The fifth book in the Ripped Through Time series has Mallory and Gray investigating the death of a young housemaid. Called in to investigate by Lady Adler, one of Duncan Gray's patrons in his undertaking business, Mallory and Gray learn that it was Madam Paix who told Lady Adler about the death during a seance. 

Gray doesn't believe in ghosts but isn't eager to alienate a patron. The puts the investigation in Mallory's hands, after all she was a police detective in Canada before traveling in time to Scotland during the reign of Queen Victoria. Gray is a scientist who is developing some forensic techniques aided by Mallory's knowledge of history. Gray, his sister Isla, and his friend Detective Hugh McCreadie are the only ones who know Mallory has come from the future. 

The young maid's body is found in a pond an apparent suicide victim as was another young woman some months earlier. Gray's autopsy indicates that she was murdered. However, the official police coroner has declared, without actually seeing the body, that she was another suicide victim. Hugh can no longer investigate without getting in trouble with his superiors because the case has been closed. 

This puts the investigation squarely on Gray and Mallory's shoulders. It isn't all that is concerning them though. With Isla soon set to marry Hugh, Mallory will no longer be able to live in Gray's house since she'll have no chaperone. Gray's offer of a marriage of convenience won't work for Mallory since she's fallen in love with him and can't image marrying a man who doesn't love her. There is a lot of tension between Gray and Mallory.

The situation gets even more complicated when they learn that Queen Victoria is a devoted reader of the chronicles of their earlier cases and wants an in-person report of how this investigation is going. 

This was another excellent episode in this series. I like the setting. I also like the way Mallory baffles both Gray and Hugh with her 21st Century slang. I also like the careful way she tries to introduce things about investigations and forensics that are well known to her but not yet invested in the Victorian period. 

I was especially pleased when I learned that one of Mallory's young informants on this case happened to be a preteen Arthur Conan Doyle. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.