Lindsay Cummings is a 22-year-old author of THE MURDER COMPLEX series coming June 2014 from Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins, as well as the MG trilogy, THE BALANCE KEEPERS, coming Fall 2014 from Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins. The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings is one of those books that has continuous action, solid world building and an interesting premise. If you enjoy a good dystopian I suggest you pick this one up. I won’t give anything away in this review because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone but trust me when I say there are some twists that will keep you turning the pages just to see what happens next.
(view spoiler)
I liked Meadow. She is tough and knows how to take care of herself but when she needed to be soft, she could be…mostly with her little sister Peri. She knows it is inevitable but Meadow hopes Peri never has to become like her. She also really loves her family and would do whatever she needs to in order to keep them safe and/or help them.
The Initiative basically runs the Shallows and the Leeches are the enforcers who report directly to the commander of the Initiative. As a sixteen year old, Meadow now has the opportunity to take a placement test and if she survives, get a job to help support her family. Ultimately this is what leads her to meet Zephyr James. There is a lot of detail around the pins that every person has imbedded in their skin as well as the barcodes tattooed onto their foreheads. There are rules to follow and consequences if you don’t.
Um…first let me say, I loved him and thought his chapters were great. He has a distinctive voice and it includes humor which I always enjoy. There is something different about Zephyr that isn’t necessarily clear immediately. It is clear that he is struggling with who he is and what he has done. The one thing that does stand out for him is Meadow. At first he doesn’t really know her but has seen her in his mind. As he sees her in reality he is clearly drawn to her and wants her to know him.
Once these two meet, the story is non-stop action. From trying to find out what the Initiative is up to, what is going on with Zephyr, where Meadow’s family is and how to stop the Motherboard, these two end up doing whatever they can to survive and hopefully accomplish everything they have set out to do. Along the way they definitely have some hurdles to overcome but they start to trust and care for each other as well as realize just what the Initiative, and those who have helped them along the way, have done to these two.
There are a number of secondary characters that play pivotal roles and I thought they helped move the story along. Talan is one that specifically stands out for me mostly because of her relationship with Zephyr but also because of her anger and attitude toward the Initiative. I also liked Koi and Peri and the relationship they had with Meadow. (hide spoiler)]
Overall this was a solid book one by a debut author. I thought Cummings did a wonderful job of building the world these characters live in as well as giving us a backstory for these characters which she reveals throughout the whole book. The alternating points of view were great and added more to the story had it only been from Meadow’s point of view.
I look forward to book two in this series as I still have a lot of questions and I can’t lie, there is a bit of a shocker ending…not shocker that you won’t see it coming but shocker in that I just don’t know what the heck is going to happen next. For sure check this one out when you can if you enjoy a fast paced story with a lot of action and some solid characters.
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