This is a highly entertaining time-travel series by a British writer.  The premise is that there is St. Mary's Institute of Historical Research where the resident historians "investigate major historical events in contemporary time".  Just don't call it time travel.  While time itself has certain safeguards to prevent messing with the timeline; St. Mary's also has rules in place about what can and cannot be done.  And the Historians do try to follow those rules…mostly.  A successful mission means the mission parameters were met…it doesn't always mean everyone comes home in one piece, or at all.

Our favorite historian, Max, is assigned to escort an elderly professor who just wants a brief glimpse of his hero, Isaac Newton.  A cakewalk, really; no battles, no weapons, no blood.  Just a jaunt to a university…but this is St. Mary's we're dealing with and the unexpected just about always happens.  They might have had the teensiest impact on a reflective telescope invention…  But it's the return that goes tits-up and Max has no idea where or when they went; just that it wasn't really anywhere or anytime.

Having recovered from almost certain destruction, Max is off to the main event; the one she's been waiting through two previous books for - a trip to see the fall of Troy.  The scale of this mission is beyond anything they've prepared for before.  They have months to prepare and expect to be in Troy ten years prior to the fall to get background and become familiar with the culture; they live in Troy for nearly a year.  And then they return just when the siege is about to end; looking for answers to questions such as "was there really a Trojan Horse and how did it work?", or "did Paris really kill Achilles?" and, most importantly, "was the war really about a stolen woman, Helen?"  The answers were not what they expected and they nearly lost everyone.  But the real tragedy was the impact those last moments in Troy had on Max's and Leon's relationship.  Max is not the forgiving kind.

As Dr. Bairstow, the Director at St. Mary's, is prone to do; he assigned Max to a small but significant event where nothing at all was expected to happen.  And, for the most part, nothing did - a singularly rare event.  It accomplished its mission for Max; it gave her a restart.  But then, the most unthinkable, the most incomprehensible thing happened and she would never again have a chance to forgive Leon.

And, as is becoming de rigueur, almost the entire staff is sent to 19th-century Glouchestershire to see just how cheese-rolling was really managed; a bit of R-and-R.  But Max, as usual, simply cannot return from the most innocuous trips without typical physical damage.  But everyone felt better after Troy.

There's barely a breath to take before the sadistic Author sends poor Max back to the Cretaceous era due to the machinations of guess-who, who intends to strand her there. Things don't go quite as her nemesis planned and the gentle reader is in for some standard time paradoxes…which event came first?  It gets a little twisty from then on.

Because these stories are never about one thing or event, Max gets to go on one final trip to her second favorite bucketlist item: Agincourt.  Final trip because she thinks she's leaving St. Mary's; leaving the most exciting job in ever, and leaving friends she deeply loves.  But also leaving the most painful memories and echoes of those who didn't make it.  And, as usual, the trip does not end without casualties.  But the end of her life just didn't quite measure up to expectations; possibly due to the meddling of Mrs. Partridge - who gave her A Second Chance.

Back to my thesaurus…I think I'll use "rollicking" this time out.  This book, like the two previous ones, is fast, clever, funny, and tragic; sometimes at the same time.  The characters are not as fleshed-out as some books would do; more detail about what's in their heads would cause the story to slog.  We get just enough; a pretty good idea of what's in Max and what motivates her and her relationships with the secondary characters.  I just love how the author doesn't make a story of a single event/trip; dragging out just everything.  Instead, she treats it more like a travelogue; a year-in-the-life-of type story.  I have a little trouble imagining what events she'll treat Max to in future stories; and I know there are quite a few more books. And I can hardly wait. ~~  Catherine Book

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