Andrea resents the idea of being a junior bridesmaid at her cousin’s wedding. Defiantly dressed in overalls at the rehearsal dinner, she listens sulkily to her grandfather’s tales of tunnels that ran beneath the streets of Moose Jaw during the liquor-smuggling days of the Depression. But when the restaurant owner shows the family a secret entrance to the tunnels from the very banqueting hall they’re using, Andrea rushes in, crashes into a full-length mirror and knocks herself out. She wakes to find a strange boy pulling her farther into the tunnel – and the past.

In her new life, Andrea becomes a runner – one of the children who lead gangsters from the train station through the tunnels to basement hideouts. She is beguiled by Big Al, the charismatic head gangster, until she witnesses his casual betrayal of two people. This prompts her dangerous role in a plot to set him up for arrest.

Al Capone hiding out beneath the streets of Moose Jaw? This fast-paced adventure explores an intriguing nugget of Canadian history. But to make a time travel story believable the protagonist must have an urgent psychological and emotional need to visit the past at this particular moment. Being in a snit at having to take part in a family wedding is just not compelling enough. And even though Andrea helps Vance (who will become her grandfather), and learns about being less selfish, the past and present in this story do not form an organic whole. It’s hard to believe, for example, that the feisty Beanie that Andrea meets in the past could become her silly great-aunt Bea in the present. Although the adventure is gripping, the time-travel element requires a more polished treatment.