Booklog 64/2025: Nick Jones: The Shadows of London - Joseph Bridgeman #2 - Audiobook

[jacey]

I started listening to this second book in the series, only to realise part way through that I also had the first one in my library, so I listened to this without any foreknowledge of the first book, except what was dripfed in as backstory. Despite that, I caught up pretty quickly. Joe Bridgeman is a time traveller who managed to go back in time in the first book and save his baby sister, Amy. Arriving back in the present he discovers that ,due to the fact Amy is still alive and well, his whole life has changed. He's still the same, but he's not the Joe Bridgeman from this timeline. Somehow he has planted himself into a different Joe Bridgeman's life, the life that his would have been. This means the Joe Bridgeman who lived the new life has suddenly popped out of existence, which is worrying, and now this Joe has to pick up the threads of a life he might have lived, but didn't. A bike accident and amnesia is the excuse he uses, though Amy knows (and helps) and he has to confess to his best friend, who takes it remarkably well. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of the woman he loves, as in this life they seem to be at loggerheads. He's kind of getting to grips with it all when suddenly he's whisked back to London, 1963, in his pyjamas, where he witnesses, and is arrested for, a shocking murder. Time pops him back home after an uncomfortable night in a police cell, but a mysterious stranger (Bill Brown) shows up and tells him there is a time-travel society, and since Joe owes time a debt for the life of his sister, he has to travel again and rescue the murdered woman. If he doesn't Amy's timeline will be re-set. Not having read the first book yet, I'm not sure whether Joe is supposed to be British or American. His antique shop is in Cheltenham, and his sister and parents are in the UK, but Ray Porter reads it in his usual American accent. Sounding pretty much like he does in Dennis E Taylor's Bobiverse books. It still works. The narration helps move the story along, however. Ind I enjoyed this enough to immediately go to the first book in the series. Recommended.