Hard Time

Name: Hard Time
Author: Jodi Taylor
ISBN: 9781472273185

Time Police · Novel 2 · 2020

Time travel has become a profitable illicit holiday business, and stopping it demands more than a uniform and a warning.

Book 2 of 6 in The Time Police

AI-generated illustration inspired by Hard Time; not a book cover.

What it’s about

Time travel has become a profitable illicit holiday business, and stopping it demands more than a uniform and a warning. The Time Police send experienced officers undercover against the operators, only to find themselves urgently needing replacements.

Luke, Jane and Matthew are still trainees, but their unlikely appearance makes them candidates for the work. Hard Time puts Team Weird into a mission for which they have neither the usual credentials nor conventional methods.

What begins with temporal tourism carries a much larger threat to the organisation. The question is whether officers who barely seem to belong can succeed where the established approach has already run into trouble.

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Can I start here?

This is book 2 in its series. Start with the first novel for its clearest introduction.

Reader questions

Do I need to read the earlier books first?

Yes. This novel is novel 2, so begin with the earlier numbered books. Follow the sequence to meet the returning cast in context. Their original introductions appear in the preceding books. Short stories are optional additions along the way. They complement the novels in this reading route.

Source: joditaylorbooks.com

Who narrates the Hard Time audiobook?

The listed unabridged UK recording is read by Zara Ramm. Its Audible page identifies this novel and the narrator together. Check that product before selecting an edition. Continue listening through the numbered novels. Add the companion pieces when their placement suits your route.

Source: audible.co.uk

Where this fits

Read this novel second, after Doing Time and before Saving Time. The opening novel is the better place to learn how the three recruits came together and why their methods cause concern. This mission continues their training period.

You can follow the Time Police books as their own sequence without alternating every instalment with a St Mary’s novel.

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Why readers love it

Our view

undercover work gives this sequel a clear reason to follow the first book. The recruits’ apparent disadvantages become relevant to the assignment itself, so readers get a new problem rather than recruitment repeated.

The illegal tourism angle also makes interference with history easy to understand: someone has found a commercial opportunity in a dangerous power. This looks especially appealing for readers who enjoy a mismatched team being asked to do a job beyond its experience.

The wider threat supplies urgency, while the trio’s trainee status keeps the human scale visible beside the institutional stakes.

Listening notes

The linked UK audiobook is an unabridged reading by Zara Ramm, running fourteen hours and eleven minutes. Allow more listening time than for Doing Time: this is a longer second instalment. Follow it with the Saving Time recording to keep the recruitment-to-qualified-officer progression in order.

The narrator remains the same across those three listed editions.