Dons of Time

Unwilling to embrace his family’s criminal work and unable to find an alternate calling, Tonio Wolfe has spent his 30-odd years drifting. Fast approaching the limits of his father’s patience, and funding, he has no choice but to take a figurehead role as head of an R&D company, TELPORT. Happily, TELPORT has created a radical new technology that allows users to view distant locations, and the applications are myriad. What Tonio is determined to keep from his father, mob boss Shelley Wolfe, is that TELPORT’s technology can reach not just across space but also through time; what’s more, it can be used to change the past. Guma’s meandering novel never quite jells; a who’s who of 19th-century figures—Jack the Ripper, Ignatius Donnelly, Annie Besant, and, of course, Nikola Tesla—have cameos, regardless of whether they add anything to the story. Part Sopranos and part X-Files, this faltering novel demonstrates that some things are less than the sum of their parts. (Oct.)