Surprisingly good!

The premise is tricky and multi-layered: a murder mystery, wedding planning, and cold feet. This is probably why I didn't expect much--because, really, how can your regular run-of-the-mill author pull all those odd threads together?

Apparently, Tim Downs is not your regular run-of-the-mill author. I've never heard of him before Nick of Time and I terribly underestimated him. Besides, the cover was unattractive, and I've never read a good mystery from a Christian publisher. So there.

But Nick of Time paints a convincingly dark, CSI-ish world with an interesting, eccentric Grissom-like main character (minus the irreverence and obnoxiousness).

Lots of dry humor, snappy banter. A solid, intriguing mystery that moves a step ahead of you, with an equally weighty subplot of relationship woes. Plus one of those really good twists that catches you off guard. None of the ready made formula endings, this one.