These are three different, but related, novellas that branch off from the original In Times Like These books. Each book contains something or someone that links it to the original series, but goes in a very different direction. These three books aren’t related to each other, and each could be the beginning of its own offshoot series. In fact, I hope that happens.

Time of Death is a hard-boiled noir romp. Agent of Time has an admirable investigator with a real a-hole of a boss – he didn’t get his comeuppance in this one, but I’d love to see that happen in a subsequent book (hint). Clockwise & Gone is the shortest, and the one I liked best. It went deeper into the characters and their motivations, and had both chilling and touching moments.

My only nitpick is the narrator of Agent of Time. At times, she runs words together, then seems to remember her “narration training” and enunciates the ends of words so hard that it almost sounds like a stutter. It did interfere with my enjoyment of the book, which is why I knocked overall Performance down a star. The other two narrators were great.

I’m looking forward to more, and more, and more from Nathan Van Coops. Keep it coming!