The 22 Murders of Madison May

by Max Barry

I’ll read anything Max Barry writes. I loved Machine Man, Company (especially the first half), and have listened to Lexicon twice.

His strength is taking a unique premise (special words can control people, an engineer building his own robot arm, multiverse murder), establishing the rules, and then seeing how they play out. The plot. His characters, especially in this book, are pretty hard to tell apart. This book wasn’t very funny, either, which is something he does well. I read the first chapter of Machine Man out loud to Karianne because it was so funny.

So this book was only okay, but I did enjoy it overall. Here’s a spoilery recap for myself, since I probably won’t re-read this one:

People can jump between universes using a “token,” which looks like an egg-shaped rock. Clayton Hors somehow got a token, and he jumped universes without meaning to. So he decided to track down Madison May, an actress who he had fallen for after seeing her first movie. But she’s disappointing in this universe, just a real estate agent. So he stabs her and jumps to the next universe.

Scientists (and Hugo, a huge construction guy whose scientist wife was killed by Clayton) are following Clayton with their own tokens. Hugo is trying to stop Clayton, but not really because of the murders. See, the tokens are tied together. Once Clayton jumps, they all have to go to the universe he went to. But the scientists would rather go to increasingly better universes, and they can’t do that until they stop Clayton.

Felicity Staples (this name seems dumb) is a reporter. She was looking into MM’s murder, tracked down Hugo, he handed her the egg (token), and she jumped to a new universe without realizing it.

Once you jump, you can never go back, and you replace the version of yourself in that universe. Then, if you jump again, you simply disappear from that universe. So every jump destroys a version of yourself.

The universe you jump to is random, but it can be controlled somewhat by moorings. A mooring is just an object – say, a universe might have Butterscotch Oreos. If you are carrying Butterscotch Oreos when you jump, then Butterscotch Oreos must exist in the universe you jump to. So you carry items that ensure certain things or people exist or certain events have occurred.

That’s the setup. Felicity is following Hugo et al through universes, trying to track down Clay. Each universe has a Madison who Clay is going to kill. There are scientists who say they are making the universe better, but really they are just selecting the universe they prefer the most, leaving a trail of destroyed versions of themselves in other universes.