Review: Death at a Highland Wedding by Kelley Armstrong

 

Death at a Highland Wedding (A Rip Through Time #4) by Kelley Armstrong

Publication Date: May 20th 2025 by Minotaur Books & Macmillan Audio

Pages: 336

Audio Book Length: 14hrs 27min

Narrator: Kate Handford

Source: Publishers

Rating: ★★★★½

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Librofm | Audible | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

Death at a Highland Wedding is the fourth installment in an excellent mystery/time travel series best read in order.

 

Detective Mallory Atkinson was attacked in modern day Scotland and somehow switched bodies with a housemaid Catriona Mitchell living in Victorian Scotland 150 years earlier. She’s become friends with Duncan Gray and his sister Isla and now works with Duncan, an undertaker/doctor who performs autopsies for the police. There’s a slow-burn (very slow) romance brewing there.

 

Mallory, Duncan, Isla and Detective Hugh McCreadie travel out to the Scottish Highlands for Hugh’s sister’s wedding. There is some conflict with the gamekeeper of the estate which comes to a head when a wild cat is found in one of his set traps. The situation goes from bad to worse when one of the guests is found murdered out on the grounds. Duncan, Mallory and Hugh offer to help the inexperienced Constable Ross, but he’s set on solving the case himself.

 

This was a mystery with a lot of layers! I was fully invested as Mallory, Duncan and Hugh go about their own investigation, employing what they can of the limited forensic sciences available that Mallory has shared. A lot of the investigation comes down to interviewing the people involved and getting to the heart of why the murder was committed. It’s an engrossing process, but the relationships between the regular and new characters are an ongoing draw, especially as we learn more of the reoccurring characters’ histories.

 

This mystery wraps up, but Duncan and Mallory will have to decide how to handle a new development that will impact their situation in the future. It’s a good development, and one I was hoping for.  I eagerly await the next installment!

 

I alternately read and listened to an e-copy and audio version. I’ve enjoyed Kate Handford’s narration in the series. I think she does an excellent job with the Scottish accents and performs both male and female voices wonderfully!

4.5 Stars

Book Description:

Death at a Highland Wedding is the fourth installment in New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong's gripping Rip Through Time Novels.

After slipping 150 years into the past, modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson has embraced her new life in Victorian Scotland as housemaid Catriona Mitchel. Although it isn’t what she expected, she's developed real, meaningful relationships with the people around her and has come to love her role as assistant to undertaker Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie.

Mallory, Gray, and McCreadie are on their way to the Scottish Highlands for McCreadie's younger sister's wedding. The McCreadies and the groom’s family, the Cranstons, have a complicated history which has made the weekend quite uncomfortable. But the Cranston estate is beautiful so Gray and Mallory decide to escape the stifling company and set off to explore the castle and surrounding wilderness. They discover that the groom, Archie Cranston, a slightly pompous and prickly man, has set up deadly traps in the woods for the endangered Scottish wildcats, and they soon come across a cat who's been caught and severely injured. Oddly, Mallory notices the cat's injuries don't match up with the intricacies of the trap. These strange irregularities, combined with the secretive and erratic behavior of the groom, put Mallory and Duncan on edge. And then when one of the guests is murdered, they must work fast to uncover the murderer before another life is lost.

New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong’s unique time travel mystery series continues to entertain as Mallory adjusts to life in the 1870s.