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The Biggest Unsolved Series of Crimes
Killing Time follows a gifted past-life investigator who is looking into a series of modern London murders that echo the crimes of Jack the Ripper. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story? What made the Jack the Ripper mystery particularly suited to the world you’ve created?
I was a Crime scene photographer for the Met police for 24 years, which means yes, I’ve seen awful sights in my time. I’ve also seen a lot of good forensic work and met a lot of skilled investigators in my time. So when I was looking for a new project to include my world of Awakening that I’d set up in my first book, The Many Lives of Adam Capello, I felt it was time to use my experiences to tell a tale of 2 investigations – one from the past and one in the near future. The mystery of Jack the Ripper is probably one of the biggest unsolved series of crimes in history, with a HUGE amount of interest. What better case to do my dual timeline investigation?
Awakening is all about discovering and confronting our past. Fantastic if you can pick up knowledge and past skills such as speaking languages, but at what price. What if you found out you’d once been Jack the Ripper? What if the shock was so terrible, your present day mind shut itself off, only to be replaced by the monster within?
What were some driving ideals behind Jason’s character’s development, and what makes him particularly suited to investigating crimes involving past lives?
Jason has a natural talent for reading body language and went on to study the subject in high detail – he excelled. His ability makes him a great Awakening investigator, able to push further and harder into people’s traumatic past lives to find who murdered them. He knows he’s putting his clients through a lot of pain for a good reason, but it still hurts him too.
Jason is, at the heart of it all, a really nice guy with a conscience. In crime writing that’s a huge no no! We want our detectives to be as complicated and flawed as their quarry to add as much character and drama to the story. So I wanted this skills to play havoc with his love life, as he over analyses everything. And inside he’s very shy, so the extraordinary expert in body language becomes and ordinary guy who can’t read a thing when he really likes someone. He’s just as clueless in those circumstances as the rest of us.
What interested you about placing the possibility of redemption alongside the idea that a violent past might literally return?
At first I just wanted the idea of a two timeline investigation with the Ripper, but as in any good film / novel, the antagonist must have redeeming features just as the protagonist has a dark side. The more I went into the Ripper’s mind, the more I wanted to find a reason for his savage attacks. It became a mission for me to twist the reader into having some sympathy for this monster, if only to confuse us. Where do our loyalties lie? What on earth could justify that level of violence? That’s what makes this more than just a historic murder mystery, it becomes psychological as well.
How does Killing Time expand the possibilities of the Awakening world established in The Many Lives of Adam Capello, and where do you see the series going from here?
Isambard Smythe is such an interesting character. I’d love to give him his own case to solve, possibly with 19th century royal connections. Sabina Bjorkman is also a very strong character, even just at the basic, ball busting, beautiful, scary DCI keeping ahead of her ‘superiors’. I’ve committed the sin of writing two related stories in different genres and from different perspectives. Both the novels are connected and yet they run alone as well. They intertwine to develop of their own accord. The next Awakening novel? Either Adam’s next adventure or another crime novel would be sensible – though I do have a great idea for a comically dark story reflecting my film work as a film stand-in. Watch this space.
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Now, a gifted detective questions his conscience as he hunts for Jack the Ripper through his reincarnated victims.
Killing Time
Killing Time is a dark and inventive crime thriller that brings Jack the Ripper into a future where death doesn’t necessarily mean escaping justice. Thanks to a revolutionary technique called Awakening, people can recover memories of their previous lives, allowing investigators to pursue criminals whose crimes were committed generations ago. When a series of gruesome murders in London bears an unmistakable resemblance to the Ripper’s work, renowned past-life investigator Jason Ives is recruited to help Scotland Yard track down the killer. What follows is a fascinating blend of science fiction, historical mystery and psychological thriller, built around a particularly unsettling question: What happens when one of history’s most notorious murderers gets another chance at life?
Jason makes an engaging central character, combining an extraordinary talent for reading people with a decidedly ordinary struggle to understand his own relationships. His uneasy partnership with the formidable DCI Sabina Bjorkman brings plenty of friction to the investigation, while his developing romance with Samantha offers some welcome warmth and humour amid the increasingly disturbing murders. Author M W Taylor gives his supporting characters their own complicated histories, gradually revealing how their experiences connect to the investigation. The story also takes readers inside the killer’s mind, where competing personalities, religious obsessions and memories of Victorian London create a troubling portrait. These shifting perspectives give the psychological thriller elements much of their intensity, particularly as the boundaries between past and present begin to blur.
One of the book’s most interesting features is its imaginative approach to reincarnation. Awakening has transformed everything from criminal justice to historical research, creating a society in which yesterday’s victims can identify their murderers and people can find themselves accountable for crimes committed in previous lifetimes. Taylor explores the possibilities through Jason’s investigation, bringing Victorian witnesses and victims into a modern murder mystery that moves between London’s historic streets, police stations and locations farther afield. There’s a substantial amount of Ripper history woven into the story, alongside forensic detail, speculative technology and some genuinely uncomfortable moral questions. The pacing occasionally slows as characters explain the workings of Awakening or examine historical evidence, but these details help establish the rules of Taylor’s imagined world. His conversational dialogue and occasional irreverent humour provide a lively contrast to the novel’s graphic violence and darker psychological material.
As the investigation progresses, Killing Time becomes increasingly concerned with identity, guilt, obsession and the consequences of remembering lives that might have been better left buried. Taylor makes good use of the emotional complications of his premise, particularly the difficult relationship between an individual’s present-day identity and the person they once were. The plot develops through unexpected connections, personal revelations and increasingly dangerous encounters, culminating in a confrontation that brings the novel’s central questions about responsibility and redemption into focus. Even as the immediate investigation reaches its conclusion, the story leaves readers contemplating the wider implications of a world where the past can never truly be forgotten. With its combination of serial killer suspense, speculative science fiction and historical crime mystery, Killing Time is an ambitious, often disturbing thriller with an intriguing take on one of London’s most enduring mysteries.
Pages: 329 | ASIN : B06XRMGQL9
In a Writer’s Mind
Killing Time follows a 93 year old man who’s given the chance to fix his greatest regret in a parallel universe but must give up his life in his current one. What inspired the setup to this thrilling story?
This is the third in a series of books involving these characters. When I originally thought of the story I wanted to tell, it centered around my relationship with my wife. We met in an unconventional way. The tiniest of variations in circumstances during a few days and we would have missed each other. Later in our relationship, I almost made a decision that would have changed everything. That became 93-year-old Sean Brody’s story, but I didn’t get around to it until the third book.
Your characters, as usual, are well developed. What were some ideas that were important for you to personify in your characters?
Characters must become very real people in a writer’s mind. They must be distinct from each other. While—like real people—they must change and grow with time, they also must remain true to their fundamental nature. My books tend to have a lot of characters, which makes this a little more difficult, but after three books, I know these people very well.
I felt that there were a lot of great twists and turns throughout the novel. Did you plan this before writing the novel, or did the twists develop organically writing?
I am not an outliner. When writing fiction, I can’t see that far ahead. I count on my characters to lead me where we are going. I guess. Truthfully, I don’t know where a lot of the plot twists come from. I’m just thankful they show up when they do.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
Two more books are on the horizon. Late this summer, we will publish my first non-fiction effort, “We Never Knew Just What It Was … The Story of the Chad Mitchell Trio.” This is a book about the 60’s folk music era and the group that had such a profound influence on those of us who grew up in the 60’s. And I’ve completed an early draft of a fourth book in my “Physics, Lust and Greed Series.”
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