It may be just me, but when I read

...with compelling characters and razor-sharp suspense, Race Against Time is a pulse-pounding triumph by talented author Willard Boyd Gardner. (back cover)

I'm immediately on guard. Either the book is really good, or it needed an extraordinary build-up in order to sell books. I dislike overstatement, and was prepared to dislike the book. In some ways, the book was better than I had expected, but it has some huge problems that should have been resolved before the book went to press.

Owen Richards is a police officer in Utah, a member of a special squad called out one night to respond to a hostage situation, highly dangerous and volatile. When his fellow officer Lewis, Owen's best friend since childhood, is killed while trying to resolve the situation, Owen finds himself needing to get away for a few days and clear his head. He visits Lewis' aunt Etta -- the boys had visited Etta many times when they were younger -- and finds some peace and a chance to regather his thoughts.

Before leaving Etta's home, she asks Owen to do her a big favor. She asks Owen to drive a family friend, Julianna McCray, to Kansas City. Owen remembers Julianna as a rotten, skinny little kid. But it's been years since he's seen her. She is now a gorgeous, full-grown woman, and Owen is delighted to do this favor for Etta.

Now here's where the whole thing becomes a bit murky. They reach Missouri after a two day trip where Julianna, a loyal LDS, recounts some of the more exciting episodes in Mormon history to Owen, who is not LDS. Owen is an amateur photographer. He steps out of the car to take a picture of Julianna, but when the shutter snaps, it's no longer Julianna, but another woman, someone unknown to Owen. Turns out he's been transported somehow to 19th century Missouri, to the days preceding the Haun's Mill massacre. What's Owen to do?

Throughout the entire narrative that follows. poor hapless Owen believes that he has stumbled into a colony of backward country folk, still solidly in the 21st century, but hostile to, and isolated from, any form of progress for the past 150 years. His truck, and all his modern police gear, are transported with him. This is good, since he'll need his AK-47 to fight off the "Missouri pukes" who insist on giving him, and his new Mormon friends, a hard time. Indeed, Owen becomes something of a hero as he joins the Mormon side in the "war" and helps protect his new friends.

And, just to make sure the package is complete, the "new friends" turn out to be the ancestors of both Lewis and his new love, Julianna. How could it be otherwise?

The book has something of a jarring effect on the reader. For example, Owen continually refers to his "truck," but no one seems to wonder what a "truck" is. They do express some perplexity when he asks for a "telephone," and there is some admiration of his weaponry.

But other discontinuities are so startling as to make you wonder why the author would allow them to pass. An example: one young girl in the Mormon settlement draws sketches. She offers to sketch Owen. He happily agrees, and then insists on paying for it. He reaches into his wallet and takes out a ten dollar bill. He hands it to the mother, who is very happy to have the extra money. Uhhhhh, no doubt the bill was not something anyone in the mid-19th century would recognize. How is it that the mother didn't ask, "What is this???"

And as the book closes, Owen is snapped back to the present, to his wonderful Julianna, and it seems as if no time has passed at all. She is still posing for the picture mentioned above. There isn't word one about his experience. He doesn't relate a single word of what he'd gone through. The whole thing just drops out of the story, leaving the reader to wonder what had really happened.

Some of the action sequences are pretty good. Gardner knows how to move it along, maintaining a level of suspense that is admirable. But there are just too may holes in the story, too much that doesn't add up, too many unresolved questions.

One is tempted to feel sorry for Owen. During his Missouri experience, he is shot at, beat up, starved, and otherwise abused. But was the experience real? He seems to have carried the bumps and bruises from the past into the present. He stands before Julianna, bruised and beaten, and she doesn't wonder what happened to him.

Early on, I lost any sympathy I might have had for Owen. During one conversation, he responds to a statement by Julianna by saying, "Okeydokey, artichokey." (p. 77) At that point I figured the guy deserved whatever he got.

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Jeff Needle
December 6, 2003