At the cliff-hanger conclusion to Gideon the Cutpurse (2006), the first book in the Gideon Trilogy, Peter Schock, a twenty-first-century 12-year-old, wound up stranded in 1763. Now, his fellow time traveler, Kate, joins Peter's father in salvaging a flubbed rescue attempt, one that delivered them to the wrong year (1792) and left their time machine broken. This is a rare middle book in a trilogy that actually outshines its predecessor, and here's why: Kate and Mr. Schock meet up with Peter, now a middle-aged gentleman, and his agonized decision making (should he reveal his identity or help the visitors continue their mission, possibly erasing his own lifetime from history?) lends the adventure thought-provoking substance. Shifting among numerous perspectives, the tale also benefits from an ingenious crime-caper subplot involving the Tar Man, an eighteenth-century thief who learns to toggle between eras. This isn't without flaws; the heavy-handed historical scene setting and old-fashioned dialogue may overwhelm some readers. Still, Buckley-Archer has delivered an effective, satisfying sequel that will ensure an audience for the trilogy's conclusion, in which Gideon will apparently return from offstage.

As the Tar Man (an eighteenth-century highwayman) begins a twenty-first century crime spree, Kate and Mr. Schock return to the past to find Peter. A machine malfunction lands them years later, when Peter is an adult. Time-travel paradoxes are explored, but not resolved, in this bridge volume, whose inconsequential crises lead up to a possibly more dynamic third installment.

Scant days after her return to the 21st century, Kate Dyer desperately wants to return to the 18th to rescue her friend and fellow time traveler Peter Schock. Twenty-nine years after Kate and her father left 1763 without him, Peter has resigned himself to the life of an 18th-century gentleman. Meanwhile, the arch-criminal Tar Man is loose in the 21st and thrilling at the opportunities. When Kate and Peter's father travel back by accident to 1792, Peter resolves to keep his identity secret—he's not the boy they're looking for—while he helps them to repair the antigravity machine that brought them there and that may yet enable them to rescue him from 1763. Buckley-Archer keeps the multiple plot lines moving nimbly, following Kate and the grown Peter in 1792, the Tar Man as he maneuvers through the modern criminal underworld and Kate's father as he struggles to bring Kate and Peter home. It's a terrific middle volume in the Gideon adventure, leaving readers and characters poised for a conclusion that promises action aplenty and thought-provoking explorations of the potential havoc wreaked by time travel. (Fiction. 10+)

Fine writing is coupled with a grand sense of adventure as Buckley-Archer keeps up both the momentum and fully fleshed characterizations introduced in Gideon the Cutpurse (Simon & Schuster, 2006/VOYA June 2006). After a twenty-first-century time machine exported two British twelve-year-olds to 1763, only Kate was restored to the present time. As this book opens, Kate and the father of the lost child, Peter, remake the journey to the eighteenth century. But things go awry: Instead of 1763, Kate and Peter's father arrive in 1792, and they are not the only time travelers. The arch villain from Gideon's era, the Tar Man, has found his way to twenty-first-century London. Raised by the gentleman Gideon since being stranded in 1763, the adult Peter wrestles with the ethics of revealing his identity to his father who is now his junior and the childhood friend who is still a child. Other ethical dilemmas faced by this wonderful cast of characters are the consequences of bringing the future into the past, the new code for being an outlaw that Tar Man learns in modern London, whether to become involved in the French Revolution, and how to seek practical help in child recovery without involving the (modern) police. Readers of the initial volume will not be the least disappointed in all that unfolds here. Because of the prologue from Gideon's diary and the opening drama in this volume, new readers can jump aboard quickly. The cliff-hanger ending is pitch perfect. Much happens here, but there is clearly much more to come.-Francisca Goldsmith.