yal group of mercenary soldiers, gets hold of the machine. Armed to the teeth with hi-tech weaponry and other gizmos the group goes back into the past. 1941 to be precise, when Hitler and his cabal were holding a secret meeting at the Eagle’s Nest.

But, unknown to Kramer, there is another group in the future that has taken up upon itself to prevent precisely such misadventures. The group’s members believe that history should not be tampered with. It sets up a unit called Time Riders which is headed by Foster – an ageing and dying man. He selects three young people from different countries and different points of time – picking them up just when they were facing certain death: Liam O’Conner from Ireland on the sinking Titanic in 1912; Maddy Carter from New York on a plane about to be blown up midair by terrorists in 2010 and Sal Vikram from Mumbai was about to be burnt to death in a fire. Supported by Bob, a flesh and blood robot (inspired by the ‘Terminator’ protagonist), the trio – that has been ensconced in a time bubble under an archway of New York City circa 2001 – keeps a strict watch on the “time shift” triggered off by malefactors.

The series of adventures and confrontations – one of them with mutants – keep the reader on the edge. Mushiness has been eschewed. Although the last thriller in this novel, wherein Liam and Bob make a nerve-tingling attempt to contact Foster, could have been handled more imaginatively it keeps us absorbed. An engrossing novel full of sci-fi chills and thrills – something that our young readers would enjoy, I am sure.

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