John Langley asked Jodi Taylor:

In the St Mary’s books we are often told that Max only has one chance to observe an event e.g. a coronation, and that in the unlikely event that things go wrong, that St Mary’s will never have another chance to carry out the mission. This is because of the problem of Max being in the same time as herself. But, what’s to stop other personnel re-doing the mission instead of Max? Great books, thank you!

Jodi Taylor Hello - I'm sorry for the delay - I've only just seen your question so apologies.

I was trying to work this out the other night. You're right, Max couldn't go back to, say, stop a murder, but could someone else? I think not because if they prevented the murder then that would change the timeline so there was no murder to prevent so the other person wouldn't go back to prevent a murder that never happened. Seriously, you don't want to go too far down that route. Not without adequate supplies of alcohol.
On the other hand, if she missed a coronation there's no reason why someone else couldn't step up and finish the job - in fact I think that's what happened in Ships Stings and Wedding Rings when Leon went back to collect something Max left behind after she'd gone back to collect something Elspeth Gray had left behind.
Thanks for your question - it's a good one!

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