August Faison and his gorgeous young daughter Genevieve are seasoned swindlers who rove across time in search of new victims to fleece. Now the most precious pigeon of them all has fallen into their laps, in Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus Christ. Dr. Owen Vannice is far too innocent and far too rich for his own good. A fabulously wealthy paleontologist, he finds himself stranded in the Holy City with a rapidly growing baby dinosaur in tow. And Simon is a disillusioned disciple whose master has been kidnapped uptime by colonists from the future. When a desperate act of sabotage brings them all together, their lives are drastically transformed, for Genevieve is falling in love with 'Dr. Nice' against her better judgement, and is even willing to double-cross her father to get him.Kessel's fluent, cinematic and often very funny SF comedy ranges from the late Cretaceous era through first-century AD Jerusalem to America in 2063. In this variant of time travel, each moment can be a separate universe. Thus one particular moment of early Jerusalem has spun off a new timeline where time-travellers saved Jesus, overthrew the Romans and imported future technology--and now run excursions to unspoilt moments where the crucifixion or Caesar's assassination are spectacles for eager tourist audiences. A suave con-man and his lovely daughter are swindling time-tourists with the ancient "badger game", and home in on a naive heir to billions who's smuggling a young dinosaur forwards in time--all this while a Jewish insurrection looms. True love blossoms amid the pratfalls, but gets fouled up before the action shifts to 2063 America. This is the home of time exploitation, featuring multiple versions of Marx, Freud, Jung, Einstein, Gandhi and numerous other historical celebrities abducted from past moments. The ethics of such time-tweaking is dodgy indeed, and provides a serious undertone to a mammoth TV trial whose legal AI is programmed to be swayed up to 20% by on-line public opinion: there are socko surprise-witness performances by Abraham Lincoln and Jesus. Thoroughly enjoyable silliness, which also pricks the conscience and ends as a movie romance should. --David Langford