*NEW RELEASE SPECIAL* Review of NETGALLEY arc Doing Time – Book 1 of The Time Police series by Jodi Taylor #Brainfluffbookreview #DoingTimebookreview

I have been a big fan of Taylor’s writing since Himself stumbled over this immensely talented author when he picked up The Nothing Girl and after that, we discovered the popular Chronicles of St Mary’s – see my review of Just One Damned Thing After Another – though you’ll also find reviews for the next four books in the series if you use the Search box at the top of the right-hand column and enter Jodi Taylor’s name.

BLURB: At some time in the future, the secret of time-travel became available to all. Chaos ensued as people sought to take advantage. Because there will always be nutters who want to change history… And so the Time Police were formed. Internationally sanctioned thugs whose task it was to keep the timeline straight by any and all means possible. And they succeeded. The Time Wars are over. The Time Police won. But who will win the peace? Doing Time follows three hapless new Time Police recruits – Jane, Luke and Matthew – as they try to navigate their first year on the beat. It’s all going to be fine. Obviously.

The book is in multiple viewpoints – Jane, Luke and Matthew all tell parts of their first testing days while training for the Time Police, though I like the fact that we don’t get to know exactly why they joined at the same time.

There is Taylor’s trademark humour, along with moments of real lump-in-the-throat poignancy – I don’t know anyone else who can swing the mood around from tears to laughter and back again with such conviction. What has been reined in a tad in this first book of a new series, is the anarchic mayhem that regularly breaks out in a St Mary’s book as those historians get an idea they want to test. I found it significant that the only time Taylor cuts loose in the same way, is when one of the characters finds himself back at St Mary’s for a short while. I was pleased to see that the more restrained, repressive atmosphere of the time police force has filtered into the writing.

That didn’t stop the tension being tight-wound to the point that I couldn’t put the book down as one character’s life becomes badly impacted by a ruthless antagonist. The sudden resolution to the situation didn’t have me wanting to break off, either. Taylor’s pacing, as ever, is brilliantly handled and I loved the way our initial bonding or otherwise with the main characters goes on altering and developing throughout the book as we learn more about each of them.

Once more, I reached the end of the book with the story having been satisfactorily concluded, but nonetheless feeling a real sense of loss that there wasn’t more. This tends to be my default emotion when getting to the end of one of Taylor’s books – and it’s a struggle to keep from plunging straight into the next one.

Highly recommended for fans of near-future, character-driven stories where time travel features, but isn’t necessarily the engine powering the narrative. The ebook arc copy of Doing Time was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest opinion of the book
9/10