The Change Paradox
SW Strackbein
Time Travel/detective, 304 pp
Sisyphus Triumphant Publishing, October 16, 2023
Reviewed by Lisa Lickel
The Change Paradox is a gritty futuristic hard-boiled detective adventure with plenty of deep-seated angst about the past and a desperate need to uncover the truth of the present while saving the future. Sanders is a detective with all the right gifts who knows all the right buttons to push to annoy the powers that be in her Chicago-based police district. Fortunately, despite her idiosyncrasies, she’s good at her job. The one unsolved crime that haunts her happened in front of her face during her childhood. It turns her into a hot mess and when her current case intersects with the past, and she throws herself into a pitched battle with time itself against a crazed inventor who’s beyond reason.
Told through the lens of multiple characters, some whose stories you believe and others are questionable, this twisty tale cracks new puzzles with each revelation. Sanders walks a big fat line of edgy, self-destruction as she works her cases which will either endear or turn off fans—sometimes at the same time. A great debut from an up-and-coming author, this story will hit a high note for fans of time-travel sci fi and detective adventures.
Reviewer Lisa Lickel is an avid book reviewer, multipublished author, and book coach at Novel In Progress Bookcamp and Writing Retreat, Inc.
