I'm a big fan of Elly Griffiths' other series, and I think I will really enjoy this new one, too. While I don't always like time travel stories, this one appealed to me. Ali Dawson is a strong character and I'm interested to learn more about her, and of course her secret detective unit of the police. Griffiths does a good job introducing characters that seem real, even though they're operating in a world that has unreal elements. I wish the murder plot was a bit twistier but I was pretty satisfied with the story. I am eager for book two in the series!

Frozen People by Elly Griffiths
Imagine a police “Department of Logistics “ that isn’t confined to investigating the present. Its officers can go back in time to figure out a true cold case. This is the type of team 50 year old Allison Dawson belongs to.
Ali, a striking woman with bright red hair, lives in London and is assigned a case that takes place in victorian times and concerns the Collectors, men who supposedly collected women among other things.
Everything seems to be in place for Allie to go through “the gate”, back to 1850 to research Cain Templeton, an infamous collector and great-great grandfather of an important political figure in modern London.
But over the course of the visit, Ali discovers a murder and misses the gate back to the present. She must learn the customs and ways of living in the 1850’s and discovers a simpler, though less comfortable, way of living.
Meanwhile, her son is back in the present and is suspected of murder. Ali must find a way to return and figure out the murders and save her son.
I hope this is a new series by Ellie Griffiths. She’s got another winner in this

#netgalley

This is an author I always look forward to reading. Her style of writing and dialogue are engaging and fun.
The story centers around time travel which may turn some readers off. But then the reader would miss an exciting, thoughtful, suspenseful book.
The stories in the past and present both held true and were interesting by themselves. It didn't take a lot of imagination to believe it could happen.
The characters - which the author always does well - were intriguing and felt real. It was so easy to get caught up in the story.
It looks like this has the potential to become a series which would be fun.
Enjoy!

I've been a big fan of Elly Griffiths since reading my first Ruth Galloway story. Since then I've devoured all of the volumes in that series as well as Griffiths other series. I have come to expect great character development, suspense, quirky characters and interesting plot lines and The Frozen People did not disappoint. Griffiths does a great job of setting up for a series that will be interesting for it's time travel component as well as for the interesting story lines. Can's wait to read the next one. Would highly recommend!

I'm a sucker for time travel stories and this one was so much fun! I loved our main character and the author did a great job at incorporating so many elements into this story, including sci-fi, mystery, humor. and a little bit of romance.

I have been reading Elly Griffiths novels for a long time. The Ruth Galloway series was my favorite, but it appears The Frozen People will prove to be another favorite series. The Frozen People is book one on a time-travel mystery series that takes protagonist Ali Dawson on a journey back to the 1850s to solve a murder. Griffiths does middle-age, unconventional heroines extremely well. Women of a certain age are not too old to solve crimes or to find romance. The characters in The Frozen People are just terrific. They have depth and the kinds of lives that command the reader's attention. The Victorian London scenes are well researched and are detailed enough to make me thankful not to have lived then. The bitter cold, even inside the rooming house where Ali lives, is enough to make me want to return to my own time. There are a number of terrific twists, involving Ali's son Finn, who is the focus of another bit of crime solving.

I definitely do recommend The Frozen People. I totally enjoyed this novel, and I suspect all readers, not just Griffiths' fans will also enjoy it. Thank you to Penguin Group Viking and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC to read and review. The above are my honest comments,

My first five-star read of 2025! I have been an Elly Griffiths fan for many years now. The Frozen People brings together the very best of what Elly has done in her other series: the relatability of Ruth; the engaging detective work of Harbinder and Natalia and Nelson; and adds in a new talent. For the first time, Elly writes time travel, and it WORKS. The novel moves back and forth between modern and Victorian London. I'm now a fan of Ali, Finn, and Jones. Here's hoping that this becomes a series!

This is a new series from Elly Griffiths and quite different from her others. In this one Ali Dawson, a middle-aged police detective, is a member of a cold case team. But this unit works with a scientist who has discovered time travel, and the team members go back in time to solve the cases, usually just a few years back. But this time Ali goes back to 1850 to solve a murder and encounters a wonderful array of characters and experiences. Set in both the present and the past this is a light-hearted read, well-written as all Griffiths works are. Recommended.

Time traveling mystery! I loved this book!
There is a new police division tasked with traveling back in time to solve cold murders. They have been successful in the past, but this time there are kinks in the plan. Will Ali be able to return to the present to stop the killer?
Happy to see that this will be a series. Recommended.

I cracked open The Frozen People without reading the synopsis so I audibly gasped when Ali's job is explained. Ali is an intriguing character that leaps off the page so it's no wonder those she encounters on her travels are immediately intrigued. The mystery of Cain and The Collectors continues to keep me guessing and I was wondering until the end if Finn would get off the hook. My quibbles were the chapters with John in 1850 and other extraneous information that clearly set-up future titles in the series. All that being said, this promises to be a fun series with a lot of opportunity to show all Victorian London has to offer.

I hope this is the first in a new series!

*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the premise of the story which is to travel in time to observe what is happening in the past. When Ali went back in time before, she went just to observe -- to see but not be seen. However, this time she is seen and becomes involved in the lives of the people there for the short time of her stay. In order to return to her own time, she has to go to the exact spot where she entered this world at the same time. When another person sneaks through in her place, she thinks she is stuck there for good. In her own time, a prominent member of parliament is murdered and her son is arrested for his murder. Once back in her own time (someone from the future comes back to take her place), she is intent on finding the truth because she knows her son is innocent. The murder in the present is connected to the her trip to the past. The dead man is the descendant of a man she meets in the past. I have to admit I began to be confused by the storyline.and felt the story ended abruptly although you can see the author is setting the story up for another book.

comfortable and engaging, but I feel like I had too many quibbles to wholeheartedly recommend this. I think one of them may be cultural because I didn't fully understand how these characters engaged with politics. It was a focus of the book and yet seemed to be something they hardly cared about on an emotional level. It mainly affected Finn's chapters for me because I felt like I never really understood him. His job felt like a surface thing he did but I didn't understand how it reconciled with his sense of who he was. Again, not a big thing if his political work wasn't a huge central premise of the story. As it was, everything felt half-baked. There also were some elements that felt unnecessarily fatphobic in a way that took away from my enjoyment. Unfortunately, that carried through to the resolution The premise was fantastic and I can see a lot of people enjoying this, but it just wasn't for me.

Since I’m neither a fan of fantasy nor sci-fi I was somewhat skeptical of requesting this title. Let me say, Elly Griffiths comes through again. Her historical research, her writing style made this a most enjoyable cozy mystery. I didn’t read it all in one sitting as I did with one of her other works however, a good read.

Thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for this digital ARC.

This was a stunner of a series debut! As a long time fan of Elly Griffiths, I had high expectations for this - and boy did she deliver. Ali Dawson is part of a cold case team investigating unsolved crimes from the past... by using time travel. When landing in 1850, she is tasked with finding out more about a group called The Collectors and shed light on some unsolved murders. But why has Ali really been sent to the past, and when she gets stuck, will she make it home?

Can't wait for book two!

Anything in Victorian London will always get me! This time traveling mystery was a lot of fun to read - the only downside is waiting for the next in the series!

I think that this could be a really awesome start to a great new series. I feel as though the world has some more developing to do, but I can see the vision.