Review: The Death Code (A Murder Complex Book 2)

A cure for death has been discovered and used. Now the world is overpopulated and a new government has risen from the ashes of what remains of society. The Initiative’s purpose: ensure that the Murder Complex continues to work to keep the population under control; find a loophole in the cure that will allow humans to once again die.

Meadow and Zypher want to stop the Initiative from using the population, but what they don’t know is just how deep the Initiative’s purpose goes.

The Death Code, by Lindsey Cummings, is the second book in a duology; something I didn’t know when I started reading the book. The first chapters were dark and didn’t do a lot to establish the world. I felt lost in a sea of desperation and torture without the ability to ground myself in the world. As I admitted, I didn’t read the first book, but I suppose it stands to reason that even a second book should give a few bits of the world to help ground new readers — such as myself — in the world before launching into such desperation.

It wasn’t until Meadow sat down with the Initiative leader that I get even a hint of what was really going on; even after that, I spent nearly 100 more pages in the world before I felt I had a good foundation. That’s nearly 150 of the 496 pages.

Now, with that stipulation aside, I loved the characters, the dangers of the world and the purpose of the Initiative were well-founded (once I had a chance to get those details). Meadow is troubled and a bit crazy because of the torture she endured. Zypher is the perfect killer who isn’t supposed to fall in love — but he does, and he follows Meadow to the ends of the world. Meadow is also a time bomb waiting to go off. Her mother made her the carrier of the Murder Complex code, so Meadow’s death would end the Complex for good. Except Zypher refuses to let that happen.

In the end, the two are forced to deal with the consequences of Meadow’s family’s choices if they have any hope of ending the Initiative. The end of the book showed how that choice between the two of them fell out, and the fall of the Initiative was tacked on to the end of the book — almost like an afterthought. I was very close to disappointed that Cummings didn’t even show us the fall of this terrible government — no, I was disappointed, but only because the fall of the Initiative didn’t get the attention it deserved.

I may have enjoyed the book more if I had read the first one, but now that I’ve read the second, I don’t really have a desire to go backward.