Life is good for Team Weird, now heroes and fully fledged Time Police officers. Luke can’t wait to bear arms. Jane has a date. And Matthew still hasn’t had his hair cut.

But Time waits for no one and neither do criminal masterminds. A major threat to the Timeline is looming, one far deadlier than mere idiots who want to change history. And when a familiar face becomes a Very Important Lead, will conflicting family loyalties spell trouble for Team Weird?

One missing. One guilt-ridden. And one facing the end of their Time Police career before it’s even begun. Not so good then, after all.

Honestly at this point, Team Weird own my heart. It’s been a while since I’ve picked up a Time Police book, I’m going to blame it on the never ending backlog of arc’s I have, but I’d had a few meh reads and a few DNF’s and needed to pick up something I knew I would enjoy… and I was right. These books are hard to sum up, mainly because of spoilers, but also because they are incredibly weird and so I don’t feel my synopsis would do the story justice. Suffice to say if you enjoy seeing a bunch of idiots slowly start to become competent at their jobs, like time travel and are always up for a good bit of British humour and sarcasm, then I can’t recommend this series enough.

These characters man. They’re hilarious, weird, incredibly annoying at points, but I have so enjoyed seeing Team Weird come into their own. They still tend to succeed more by accident than by skill, but the percentage is getting closer to even with every book. I think what I enjoyed most about this one though was the character development. They all seemed to come into themselves more in this book, Luke became a little less demeaning and I felt the need to punch him in the face fewer times. Jane started listening to bolshy Jane instead of wimpy Jane (her internal voices that more than often give her stick and question her decisions) and Matthew… well Matthew was still a little weird, but he did fully embody the Time Police and risked his own neck more than once for their goals.

Alongside Team Weird, Taylor gives us the usual side cast of characters. Their POV’s jumping in to provide context, humour and sometimes a little intrigue, but she has this excellent ability of keeping us on our toes, giving us just the right amount of information so we never truly know who we can trust, who is on our side or who is double crossing us.

I still need to pick up the Saint Mary’s Chronicles, which is another series set in the same world as the Time Police, but for people who have read it, those characters do crop up a little more in this book than previous ones and I enjoyed their involvement. In fact I love the banter and the battles between St Mary’s and the Time Police. St Mary’s who love to travel back in time to document historical events and the Time Police who are constantly trying to tamp down on time travel of any kind. They begrudgingly work together, absolutely only when the need arises, and there were multiple suggestions of people being shot if they didn’t follow direct orders… so as you can imagine their interactions added plenty of humour, and sometimes a little danger to the story.

Taylor’s writing style is definitely on the quirky side, she tends to jump between POV’s throughout the story (but have faith that they are all well placed), writes characters that you end up loving, even if you want to punch them sometimes, and introduces you to different times, places and historical events, but what this story had over the others was an emotional impact. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some nail biting scenes in the previous books, but none of them have made me cry… and this book made me cry. But in true British fashion, and laced with Taylor’s iconic wit, it’s never too sad and she interjects humour at the perfect moments to keep up the tempo of the story and ensure there are no lags.

I really love this series, but I think the part I loved about this book in particular was seeing the development of all the relationships. Team Weird just seemed to grow closer in this book, as well as growing individually as characters and I am definitely going to be picking up the next book asap because, though it doesn’t end on a cliff hanger, Taylor still leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions and I need to find out what happens next.