The 22 Murders Of Madison May - Max Barry

I will make exceptions, but it would take something special for me to want to read any more books with titles that are variations on The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle or The Many Lives of Heloise Starchild, but we are talking about Max Barry here. Barry, in my experience (Jennifer Government, Lexicon, Providence), has always been creative within the conventions of the science fiction genre, so when he comes in with a book entitled The 22 Murders of Madison May, I don’t even need to read the blurb or synopsis to know he’s going to come up with an entertaining and distinctive variation on a theme that is often difficult to work with.

Those who haven’t read Barry however it might take a little more convincing, so to summarise the concept (which is admittedly is a little easier than trying to describe The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle) it’s about a 22 year old woman, Madison May, an estate agent, an actress or whatever she happens to be in 22 different realities in which she is going to be murdered. A young man, Clayton Hors, who has become obsessed with the idea that Maddie must be perfect, is travelling through each of those realities and killing any version of Maddie that doesn’t live up to his ideal. And Maddie is surprisingly easy to track down and murder since – other than for normal personal security – she has no reason to suspect that anyone would want to kill her.

So, perhaps not too complex for a science fiction thriller and perhaps not too original either. It’s a variation on the time travel genre of going back through to change the future by killing someone in the past. Plenty of movies work on this classic premise – Terminator, Looper, Twelve Monkeys – and it’s one that usually has plenty of intriguing complications, paradoxes to resolve and philosophical questions. The 22 Murders of Madison May seems a little simplistic in comparison. In fact, judging by the first two gruesome killings you wonder if you really have the stomach for another twenty. Fortunately – in in some ways – Clay is already a considerable way through that figure and inevitably the story is a little more complicated than that.

For a start there are a few other people jumping dimensions trying to catch Clay, and now there’s also a journalist involved. Crime stories are not Felicity Staple’s usual work, but when she fills in and picks up a couple of unusual elements and an unusual figure at the scene of the murder of an estate agent, she is drawn into this strange series of cross dimensional murders. And drawn into the multi-dimensional vortex herself. She doesn’t know how this has happened and is initially confused by the slight changes she sees in her boyfriend in each new dimension but there is one consistent purpose she is sure of; she needs to stop Clayton Hors killing Maddie again. And again.

You would hope with any good SF book of this type that there is also more than just this thriller murder chase adventure, that there might be some at least semi-credible rationale behind the process and that it might touch on some deeper issues relating to people and society. The concept of the ability to jump is sort of glossed over, but as Felicity takes time to speaking to a college professor, we at least are able to get to grips with the theory. It’s not by chance either that Maddie is a budding actress, to varying levels of success in each dimension, as the concept inevitably questions how much control we have over the roles or direction of our lives.

Getting all that in and making it a thrilling ride is one thing but, like time travel holding it together consistently and following it through to a satisfactory conclusion is another matter that often proves to be disappointing by the time it comes to trying everything up. As far I’m concerned Max Barry has never failed on that front and he doesn’t disappoint here either. The many worlds of Max Barry and The 22 Murders of Madison May are well worth taking the time to explore.