With technology created by Dr. Andrea Moretti, a brilliant elderly scientist, General Stewart of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, together with General Brooks of the Army, creates two teams to travel back in time to glean knowledge from the past and potentially dish out some justice, but not to alter the timeline. Marine Major JJ Jackson, who is like a grandson to Stewart, is chosen to head Team 1 (T1), with both teams mostly being comprised of other Marines, with the odd Army member inserted to placate Brooks, who is often at odds with Stewart.
Each team member must wear a "pulse" which is the device that allows them to travel back in time. There must always be 6 members of the team (with 6 beating hearts) in order for the tech to work, so everyone coming back alive is a definite. The first mission finds the team in Berlin right after Germany's defeat, with the task of executing Hitler before he has a chance to commit suicide. Naturally, things go sideways when a member of the team gets careless, and another one blatantly breaks the rules of not taking anything from the past back with them. Despite these snafus, the team goes on with another mission.
They are sent back to Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War to see if the conditions of those men under George Washington were truly as bad as history describes. Once again, they run into trouble, this time mere moments after arriving. They are then sent to ancient Rome to investigate the Coliseum and those fighting. There's a few off-the-books missions thrown in for good measure, as well. They take an esteemed elderly friend of Stewart's to a pivotal point in time that has special sentimental meaning to him. Then there's a trip to Yellowstone in 1806 with the hopes of meeting up with Lewis and Clark. Again, as always, things go awry with disastrous consequences. T1 also goes back to the point that one of them was born to discover his history... because what could go wrong? When BOTM faces being shut down permanently due to all of the screw-ups, Jackson decides to make one more off-book trip in the hopes of saving the life of someone very close to him and, this time, Stewart can't save his golden boy.
While much more happens in the book, I assume to set up the sequel, The Lost Pulse, which I will be reading next, I found it took me quite a while to get through this book. The premise sounded really interesting when I read the excerpt on Amazon, but I didn't feel like what happens after that initial great idea was very realistic. I don't, personally, have any military history, but the characters seemed a bit too gung ho and I found it ridiculous that they made such crazy mistakes costing life after life, and also blatantly chose to defy protocol over and over for personal reasons. That said, the story just seemed a bit of a mess. There were a number of characters built up, members of the teams, but honestly, they all mostly blended together for me, except for Marine Christy White, who was the only female, so she was easy to distinguish.
I do hope that the second book is better, but I felt like Kelly changing gears completely and kicking it into high gear in the last chapter did the story a bit of a disservice. Sure, he is setting up the next book, but it felt like a completely different story, simply because it was. It was the beginning of the sequel, essentially. I will read The Lost Pulse, but I am not particularly excited about it. We shall see.
