Big Time delivers an interesting and original concept—the idea that time can be quantified and harnessed through biochemical extracts—to create a solid technological thriller. The result is a dark conspiracy to harvest time from people's lives and sell it like a commodity. 

The concept is a gem, but Big Time seems to trap itself with a cast of relatively superficial characters that sometimes feel like modern cliches of themselves. It opens well enough with a young woman named Allie, apparently kidnapped and confused, being driven to a destination by a hard-hearted female contractor, one part courier, and one part assassin. This woman abducted Allie while another contractor, a strange man who is never reconciled, kidnapped Allie's daughter, Rachel.

The second protagonist is Grace Berney. She is a mid-level bureaucrat in the FDA, raising a gender-neutral daughter and caring for an aging and snarky mother who suffers from bouts of dementia. She stumbles onto the conspiracy at her dull, mindless job and risks everything to satisfy her curiosity. And as unlikely as it sounds, and it is unlikely, she and Allie have remarkably similar voices despite having nothing in common. In fact, most of the characters are relatively similar, which is remarkable given the entire cast is primarily made up of like-minded females, overshadowing even more thinly drawn men. 

And therein lies where a 3-star plot and 2-star characters weigh down a 5-star concept. Overall, it's a mundane piece of work that takes the reader from one confrontation or cliffhanger to the next, but there never really is any mind-blowing revelation. Even the ending lags in its assertion that the greedy are willing to sell anything and make a buck. But that's a lesson we don't need to learn. Of course, the greedy are willing to sell anything. That's why we call them greedy.