Wrong Place, Wrong Time abides by the conventions of the mystery thriller. It contains plot twists and red herrings, or false clues. Jen, in her determination to find out an explanation, fulfills the role of the dogged police detective gathering information, running into dead ends, and uncovering the truth. In using the device of a time loop, McAllister upends the conventions of the police procedural genre: The novel not only solves a crime but actually prevents it.

The novel explores the idea of the multiverse. Events play out in alternate realities in endless variations. Propelled into a time loop by love for her son, Jen is guided by her own subconscious, returning to days critical to understanding the murder. The time loop allows her not only to solve the murder but to reflect on herself. She realizes how she was too busy to notice what was happening around her.

Jen fears that she hadn’t been much of a mother. When she has the chance to relive the day her father died alone, sipping beer and watching TV, Jen opts to stay with him. They have the heart-to-heart talk they never had about the heartache of parenting, the demands of child-rearing, and the anxiety every parent has over whether they are up to the job.