Out of Time

The prolific author of more than a dozen hard sf novels, Hogan here turns in a brief, skillfully rendered mixture of sf and detective elements. When all the clocks and watches in Manhattan inexplicably fall out of synch with one another, criminal investigator Joe Kopeksky is assigned to examine the possibility that someone or something is literally stealing time. With the help of his quirky fact-finding assistant, a physicist, and an elderly priest fascinated by insects, Kopeksky pursues the outlandish but all-too-likely notion that other-dimensional bugs are "eating" time and leaving space as a waste product. Following the brisk pace and economical plotting of a TV police show, Hogan displays a sure hand for believable characterizations and an appropriately wry tone to match the improbable premise. A well-written, entirely original addition to the sf literature of time alteration. Carl Hays