Day of the Assassins

O’Brien, Johnny. Day of the Assassins. Book 1 of the Jack Christie Adventure series. 2009. 224p. ISBN 9780763645953. Available at FIC OBR on the library shelves.

Jack Christie is a regular teenager. His father left when he was three, and he’s lived his whole life with his loving mother in Scotland. At fifteen, Jack loves playing video games, and his current favorite is Point-of-Departure, a World War I simulation. His best friend Angus also likes to play it, and they often talk about what life would have been like then. It’s a typical teenage life.

When Jack receives a history book from a father he doesn’t know, however, that things are about to change drastically. Jack and Angus discover a secret workshop in Jack’s basement, and the boys learn that there is a conflict between two secret organizations, both of which possess time machines. The first group seeks to travel back in time and fix some of the errors of the past, while the second group believe in non-intervention in past affairs.

Pawns in the fight between these two groups, Jack and Angus travel back in time to August 1914, and find themselves in Belgrade as Archduke Ferdinand is visiting. The boys know that the assassination of Ferdinand is the match that lights the First World War. They now face a most difficult choice: Prevent the assassination and irrevocably change world history (and their own!) or let the assassination take place and live with the knowledge that they could have stopped a world tragedy. What choice will they make?

This book is a great “what if” book, and features plenty of action and adventure to boot. Fans of the First World War will enjoy the world setting and the experience of “being” there.