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.

Max is dead in her universe.  Unceremoniously, picked up by Mrs. Partridge and just as unceremoniously dumped into another.  But this one still has Leon in it…but not her.  In her universe, Leon died but in this new one she was the one who died.  It seems like a match made in heaven; they both have a second chance.  Max starts thinking about the future but doesn't make it much past breakfast before the two of them are running for their lives…without her toast.  Mrs. Partridge was kind enough to have told her she had a job to do but not accommodating enough to actually explain it.

The Time Police are on a tear and it's all about that small boy that was rescued when Troy fell.  One of the cardinal rules is that nothing is to be taken from the past; they carefully brush dirt off clothes, throw out food remains and generally sweep the pod before leaving; so taking a person, no matter how small, is generally frowned upon.  The twisty part is that in Max's universe it was Leon who broke the rules; and in this other universe, it was Max.  It appears that the Time Police (and everyone else) are somewhat confused over whether she should be arrested or not.  Max and Leon do nothing to correct their confusion; but, unfortunately, that doesn't deter them, a sort of "arrest them all and sort them out later" rule seems to be in force. 

And no matter where and when Max and Leon leap to, the Time Police are usually just hours or even minutes behind them and they have no idea how they are being tracked. Eventually, they figure it out…every historian sent out is tagged so St. Mary's can find them when a mission goes tits-up.  So, obviously, the tag in Max's arm needs to come out.  Just as obviously, Leon is a techie, not a medic…his search for a tiny tag made a bit of a mess of her arm.  By the time Leon figures out how to smuggle Max back into St. Mary's without alerting the Time Police, her arm is…well…something that Dr. Hunter is a bit upset over.  Once the tag is correctly located and removed, Leon planned to drop it into Mount Vesuvius.  Unfortunately (as is usually the case for Max), the Time Police raided St. Mary's and found Max before she and Leon could escape.  But Leon got away.

Max's stay at St. Mary's is bittersweet.  Familiar faces were everywhere, some who had been dead in her universe for some time; and one, in particular, raises homicidal thoughts.  And for them, she is an anomaly as their Max has been dead for a while.  Max has no idea who can be trusted with her truth.

Finally, Max ends up in a hearing with the Time Police to determine exactly who she is and where she came from.  Either they'll shoot her for removing the child from Troy or they'll shoot her for being out of her own universe.  Even with Mrs. Partridge assuring her that all she has to do is tell the truth, Max can't quite see how she'll survive.  But, according to Mrs. Partridge, it is absolutely imperative that Max not only survive…but also bring down the Time Police.

Again, this story just continues to be ten kinds of fun to read.  I haven't read a funnier story since Robert Asprin passed away; and he was hilarious.  As with the previous stories, Max careens around history with hardly a breath between stops but this time it wasn't for missions.  It was a tad more serious since Max spends the entire book racing from death whether it was asphyxiation from volcanic ash or gangrene.  But the author's wry observations and Max's irrepressible irony just make for laugh-out-loud moments…quite a few of them, actually.

The gentle reader should not expect a thoughtful plotline or timeless characterizations.  Instead, the reader should expect to shoot tea out their nose if a particularly challenging passage engages them while they are, unfortunately, drinking tea.  This happens a lot at St. Mary's, apparently. I can hardly wait to see what becomes of Max and Leon.  Will she be accepted at this St. Mary's and continue to be a historian?  Will Leon have to return to his own time, which is her future?  Will Isabella Barclay, aka "bitchface", reappear?  These questions and more may or may not be answered in subsequent books.  The reader is on their own…

But seriously….I cannot state this more emphatically:  Read. These. Books.  Hurry… ~~  Catherine Book

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