
The Killing Time
the second Ali Dawson Mystery from the No 1 bestselling author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries
Elly Griffiths(Author)
Quercus Publishing
Will be published approx. on 12. February 2026
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-1-5294-3338-8 (ISBN)
Description
**PREORDER NOW**
'Warm and engaging characters and a wildly brilliant story wittily told' Ann Cleeves
'Ali Dawson is a delight - a detective you'll want to spend more time with' JP Delaney
Join Ali Dawson and her cold case team for another thrilling case.
Ali Dawson is a police detective who leads a unit that investigates cases so cold her team must travel to the distant past to solve them. But Ali and the team haven't been allowed to time-travel ever since their technical expert, Jones, got stuck in Victorian London, never to be seen again.
To distract herself from meaningless tasks, Ali decides to look into a present-day case - an apparent suicide of a young man who fell to his death from a high building. She believes the death is linked to a psychic medium called Barry Power, who convinced the boy he could fly. Ali goes to one of Power's shows where he claims to be in contact with Jones.
When Ali notices that evening that her cat, Terry, has gone missing, she decides to go back in time just long enough to prevent Terry from escaping through his open cat flap. A dangerous plan which backfires, and she finds herself once more in Victorian London, where she meets Jones, as well as Power, and the darkly mysterious Cain Templeton with whom Ali has unfinished business from her previous visit to the past . . .
'Elly Griffiths has done it again. Warm, witty and outrageously believable. I loved it' Sarah Hilary
'Here's a paradox: a thriller that is full of zest and joy' Nicci French
'Ali Dawson could be the most fun time-travelling detective since Dirk Gently' Chris Brookmyre
'Warm and engaging characters and a wildly brilliant story wittily told' Ann Cleeves
'Ali Dawson is a delight - a detective you'll want to spend more time with' JP Delaney
Join Ali Dawson and her cold case team for another thrilling case.
Ali Dawson is a police detective who leads a unit that investigates cases so cold her team must travel to the distant past to solve them. But Ali and the team haven't been allowed to time-travel ever since their technical expert, Jones, got stuck in Victorian London, never to be seen again.
To distract herself from meaningless tasks, Ali decides to look into a present-day case - an apparent suicide of a young man who fell to his death from a high building. She believes the death is linked to a psychic medium called Barry Power, who convinced the boy he could fly. Ali goes to one of Power's shows where he claims to be in contact with Jones.
When Ali notices that evening that her cat, Terry, has gone missing, she decides to go back in time just long enough to prevent Terry from escaping through his open cat flap. A dangerous plan which backfires, and she finds herself once more in Victorian London, where she meets Jones, as well as Power, and the darkly mysterious Cain Templeton with whom Ali has unfinished business from her previous visit to the past . . .
'Elly Griffiths has done it again. Warm, witty and outrageously believable. I loved it' Sarah Hilary
'Here's a paradox: a thriller that is full of zest and joy' Nicci French
'Ali Dawson could be the most fun time-travelling detective since Dirk Gently' Chris Brookmyre
Reviews / Votes
Elly Griffiths has done it again. The Killing Time is a deft and compelling detective story with the added frisson of time travel. Warm, witty and outrageously believable. I loved it * Sarah Hilary * Ali Dawson could be the most fun time-travelling detective since Dirk Gently * Chris Brookmyre * Warm and engaging characters and a wildly brilliant story wittily told; I loved this * Ann Cleeves * Joyously inventive, totally original, filled with warmth, humanity and fun. Ali Dawson is a delight - a detective you'll want to spend more time with * JP Delaney * Here's a paradox: a thriller that is full of zest and joy * Nicci French *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
555 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5294-3338-8 (9781529433388)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Elly Griffiths
The Killing Time
the bestselling new Ali Dawson Mystery - from the author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries
E-Book
02/2026
Quercus
€10.99
Available for download
Person
Elly Griffiths is the bestselling author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries and the Brighton Mysteries. She has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, has been shortlisted five times for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for The Lantern Men. Her new series featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur began with The Stranger Diaries, which was a Richard and Judy book club pick and won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in the USA. It was followed by The Postscript Murders, shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and Bleeding Heart Yard. Elly has two grown-up children and lives near Brighton with her archaeologist husband.