What Could Possibly Go Wrong? - Jodi Taylor

   2015; 390 pages.  Book 6 (out of 14) in the series “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s”.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Fantasy; Historical Fiction.  Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    Congratulations are in order for Madeleine “Max” Maxwell!  She’s recently been appointed Chief Training Officer at St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research.

 

    A group of five new recruits has just been assigned to her, and she’s already mapped out a series of time-jumps with a sufficient variety of places, times, tasks, and difficulties by which the newbies will hopefully learn the rewards and risks of St. Mary's core business: chronicling historical events, while at the same time, Max will evaluate the leadership, decision-making, and team-building qualities in each recruit.

 

    Admittedly, Max’s new role is somewhat of a head-scratcher.  Her own time-traveling experiences have been “eventful”, although “chaotic” would perhaps be a more apt description.  Oh well, the first couple of scheduled chrono-hops should be tame affairs, with the trainees being limited to being merely observers and note-takers, and from a comfortable distance away from peaceful events.

 

    What could possibly go wrong?

 

What’s To Like...

    The main storyline in What Could Possibly Go Wrong? is straightforward: the reader gets to share in the misadventures of Max’s training sessions with her first group of rookies.  There is also a secondary plotline, however, which consists of investigating whether there is a double-agent operating within St. Mary’s.  Max will be kept busy.

 

    The training missions result in nine separate time-jumps, which is about double the usual amount for a Chronicles of St. Mary’s novel, and the destinations will be a literary treat for any reader who’s a history buff.  As usual, I was blown away by Jodi Taylor’s incredibly realistic descriptions of the various places-&-times visited.  They felt very realistic to me, much to my delight.

 

    The book is written in English, not American, which is always a treat.  Besides the usual spelling variants: despatched, furore, sceptically, plough, sabre-tooths, etc., there were a number of British phrases and slang that had me asking Google for a "translation", including: oik, grassed up, bottle out, plonker, and the colorful like a tramp on a kipper, whose meaning I never did suss out, even after consulting a friend of mine who has lived all her life in Merrie Olde England.

 

    Once again, I very much liked the variety of chrono-hopping destinations.  We won’t spoil the storyline by listing them here, but the book cover image above gives you a clue as to the first two places visited.  The Sonic Scream and Time Map were both fascinating innovations, and I had fun deciphering the Latin phrase “Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic vider?”

 

    All the perils encountered in the time-travel excursions lead to a successful and satisfying end.  History is not changed, which is one of the ironclad rules when chrono-hopping for St. Mary’s.  The five trainees, plus Max, are all evaluated, and we’ll simply note that not everyone passes muster.  Some good guys perish along the way, some evildoers succeed in plying their skullduggery, and there’s a neat “hook” at the very end that will whet your appetite for Book 7: Lies, Damned Lies, and History.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 5,916 ratings and 535 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.42*/5, based on 10,191 ratings and 606 reviews.

 

Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    “I’m not wearing anything whose design is based on Bashford’s testicles.”

 

Excerpts...

    We’re St. Mary’s.  We don’t scream.  Although we do tend to be a cause of screaming in others.  So when a yelping Bashford raced past, followed by a stampede of St. Mary’s staff, all of them shrieking contradictory instructions, you could say my attention was caught.

    “My feet are melting!  My feet are melting!”

    I gestured to my trainees to remain where they were.  The sooner they got used to this, the better.  I had no clue what was going on.  Given those involved, it could be anything from a reconstruction of some medieval torture device to a re-enactment of the famous scene from The Wizard of Oz.  (pg. 15)

 

    “Max, I think you should stay behind.”

    I turned slowly.  “What did you say?”

    “I think you should stay out of this.”

    “Because?”

    “Because if something goes wrong then one of us is still able to get back to St. Mary’s.”

    “I appreciate your reasoning, but if we all end up under arrest then a mature and respectable female can more easily facilitate our path to freedom.”

    “Not sure we’ll be able to find one at this short notice.”

    “I’m going to ignore that comment.”  (pg. 188)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Grass up (v.) : to tell the police about the criminal activity of someone.

Others: Recce (n.); Plonker (n.); Firkle (v.), Artic (n.); Oik (n.).

 

“Why has Miss Sykes entitled her report, ‘How Mr. Atherton Lost His Trousers’?”  (pg. 382)

    Finding things to cavil about is always a challenge in this series.

 

    The text is refreshingly clean; I noted just two cusswords in the first 20% of the book, and there's one roll-in-the-hay later on.  The editing is topnotch.  I caught only one typo: “The stared” instead of “They stared”.  I thought I saw a second one, using span as the past tense for spin instead of spun.  But upon researching it, it turns out “span” is an archaic verb form, and therefore a valid option.

 

    Besides the already mentioned British colloquialisms, there were several English cultural references, including Horlicks, The Archers, and someone “losing her bottle”.  These might disrupt the storyline flow for some American readers, but personally I thoroughly enjoyed these "hiccoughs."

 

    At book's end, a couple of the plot threads remain unresolved, including the identity of a several millennia-old historical figure who apparently also was once employed by St. Mary’s.  One or more trainees are shown to have ulterior agendas, but the identities of those who caused this remain hidden.  I suspect these issues will be addressed in the sequel, though.

 

    But I quibble.  What Could Possibly Go Wrong? has lots of wit, lots of grit, lots of action, and lots of human interactions, all of which kept me reading “just one more chapter” at night.  Romance takes a backseat to the time-traveling here, the previous Ultimate Bad Guys are no-shows, and the Time Police make only a cameo appearance.  Sounds awkward, but somehow it all works wonderfully.  I’m hooked on this series.

 

    9½ Stars.  One last bit of trivia.  At one point, a visit is made to a place in Siberia called Pleistocene Park.  I thought it was a fictional take-off of Jurassic Park!  I was therefore astounded to find out that it really does exist, and is located in present-day Siberia.  Really!  Wiki it.