Second paragraph of Chapter 51 (which is the third chapter after the prologues; they are numbered going backwards from 53):

The leather cover is scuffed and worn. The binding is slightly loose and several of the pages have pulled almost free. Others are torn or stained or missing entirely.

Going back to the sequence of Doctor Who novels that I read but did not get around to reviewing in 2014-2015, this is the seventieth of the BBC Eighth Doctor series, and also a bit of a turning point in the sequence. The Doctor and faithful companions Fitz and Anji head off in three different directions for what seem at first to be three different adventures, Fitz in 1893 and the others in 2002, but it becomes clear that their stories are intertwined. Some great circumstantial detail, with the image of the TARDIS in a glacier particularly memorable, and we also pick up a good deal about what makes the companions tick. I was a bit confused by the end, though, as it is a while since I read this series and I had forgotten the exact significance of recurring characters Sabbath and Trix. Little mercy is shown to new readers here. But Justin Richards is usually a reliably entertaining writer, and here he was also the overall editor of the series: he gave himself the task of twisting it in a slightly different direction, and succeeded.

You can get Time Zero here. Next up is The Infinity Race, by Simon Messingham.