Madman's Dance
Jana G. Oliver
Dragon Moon Press, $14.95, 392 Pages, ISBN: 9781896944845
reviewed by Jim Brock
All you really need to know is that MADMAN’S DANCE is Jana Oliver’s newest (and third) Time Rover book. That means it is a must-buy must-read. But I’ll tell you some more anyway. The title is as apt as you can get. Time Rover, Jacynda Lassiter is in London, November 1888, with her memories erased and locked inside the hellhole of a 19th century insane asylum called Bedlam. That’s a particularly nightmarish situation for someone from our future.
But Cynda isn’t the only one with problems. Her Scotland Yard friend, Jonathon Keats, is being hunted for a murder he didn’t commit and has a hangman’s noose in his future. Her other friend from that time, Dr. Alistair Montrose, is getting deeper into forensics and deeper in the middle of the plotting and forces that might destroy London and drastically affect the timelines of the future.
Jana Oliver has succeeded so grandly in blending so many elements from history and science fiction and mystery and romance into three separate novels: SOJURN, VIRTUAL EVIL and MADMAN’S DANCE. These three make one super novel that is a rich buffet of ideas, plots and counterplots, past and future, and the future’s future.
MADMAN’S DANCE brings to a head the conflicts of the players from Cynda’s time. It also adds the complications of the players from her future. It settles the problems of the series to date in a very satisfying way and even solves the dilemma of Cynda’s love life.
Earlier I said this is a must-buy must-read. That is true of everything Jana Oliver has ever written – and that covers both her past and her future.