First, no one, and I mean no one can be trusted. But when a special project pitches Max and her partner Sussman back further than any team have ever gone before – into the depths of the Cretaceous period – they make a shocking discovery. Max, an ancient history specialist, dreams of the Trojan War, but that’s presumably something for future books.Īnd so, discreetly directed by the research department at the University of Thirsk, these ‘ tea-drenched disaster-magnets‘ rattle around history, observing, discovering, and occasionally running at full tilt away from things with enormous teeth.

But Max and her colleagues are willing to risk this for the sheer joy of witnessing the building of Westminster Abbey, or the Battle of Agincourt, or the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I. It’s risky stuff: as Max herself laments at one point, ‘ this unit go through historians like laxatives through a short grandmother’. It’s that old paradox, about how stepping on a butterfly in the Palaeolithic period can fundamentally change the evolution of mankind (or similar).

There are all sorts of hazards to negotiate: R&D on the verge of blowing up the building once again pod malfunctions and, worst of all, History’s own way of neutralising anyone who threatens to change the timeline. Max and her band of fellow trainees discover this almost immediately. St Mary’s welcomes those who have few family ties: fewer people to notify when things go wrong as things do, frequently. A roistering tale of historical skulduggery, physics, and plenty of tea, this is a glorious, geeky gem of a book: historian’s catnip. For St Mary’s have discovered the secrets of time-travel, and there are no limits to their research.

Once Max has passed her interview, she enters a thrilling world where ‘practical history’ takes on a whole new meaning. How do you drive a quadriga? How far could Icarus have flown? What are the constituents of Greek fire? But the initiated soon learn a different story. The historians of St Mary’s have a public reputation as eccentric, shabby and lovable: a band of chaotic academics who pursue the bits of history that others don’t reach. Many years later, having gained her PhD from the University of Thirsk, Max has a second reason to thank Mrs De Winter, who puts her up for a job at the St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research.

At school, Max is saved by her teacher Mrs De Winter, who channels her disruptive tendencies into a deep passion for history. She’s also an historian, which amounts to much the same thing. Madeleine Maxwell – short, opinionated redhead – is a maverick.

History is just one damned thing