A year ago, Dora Duncan's life fell into shambles. First, the reporter was taken prisoner in Iraq, then, she learns that her boyfriend, Nick Fitzgerald, was cheating on her with a local girl while she languished. Now, she's free, but has ditched both Nick and network news. She's also miserable and lonely. Then, the infamous Men in Black approach her to go on a mission to save the world.

Apparently, Nick took the breakup hard, and has gotten involved with a group known as the Time Warriors. What began as a benign quest to see history up close has turned into a bid to change it. Now, Dora has to prevent the St Valentine's Day Massacre from being altered. To do so, she must "quantum leap" into the life of a mob moll, Louise Rolfe, and keep Nick from undoing the past. While there, her only contact with the present world is not a cool hologram, but another agent, who has quantum leaped into a rat.

Although some aspects of the twenties are glamorous and fun, Dora finds most of them not so wonderful. She's apparently living inside the skin of a woman who has absolutely no taste in men and has loose morals in more than one way. Dora, however, does have good taste in men, and while she finds her supposed lover Machine Gun loathsome, one of his men, Sam, is hot. Unfortunately, he's also Nick. Moreover, she's not sure any longer exactly what she ought to be doing, just that she would really like to get home before she gets killed. Or worse, Nick does.

Even without the twist at the end, this is a fun book, filled with both humor and a touch of wisdom. Ms. Mancusi's writing style has grown more readable since her last foray into publishing, as she now uses the past tense instead of present, which is more comfortable in one's head. Keep an eye on her work.

Synopsis
Lonely and lovelorn, reporter Dora Duncan finds herself transported back in time to the Roaring Twenties where she must stop the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago with the help of a notorious--and dangerously sexy--gangster who makes her forget the future. Original.