Blackout

Another great book (and multiple award winner) in Willis' wonderful 2060 Oxford's Time Travel series. Set again in World War 2, we get to experience several key events in the Battle of Britain (e.g. London's Child Evacuation, Dunkirk, the Blitz, V1 & V2 attacks) as historians go back in time to study "contemps". The details are very well researched and the author paints an accurate picture of what life was like in 1940's Britain. Although our historians know how the War ended, we still get a sense of the serious peril Britain was in and are reminded again and again, just how close Hitler was to succeeding. To prevent any changes to history, one of the safety features built into the "net" that transports the scholars back in time is that it automatically imposes "slippage" to their target time/location to keep "divergence" points of history unchanged. Something has gone wrong this time. What unfolds is a somewhat manic farce as our protagonists frantically try to figure out what is happening and return to their own timeline. They are pulled along by (often quite funny) events and a huge cast of minor characters, outside of their control. At the end of this book, our protagonists are just starting to realize they may be trapped and the true dangers that brings.