*I received a free copy of this book with thanks to the author and Rachel Gilbey at Rachel’s Random Resources blog tours. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
Blurb: The Multiverse Investigations Unit – fighting crime across the Multiverse
Alex Strand is finding her way as the newest and most ginger member of the University of Berkeley Physics Faculty.
But when the murder of reclusive internet billionaire Claire Pope proves insoluble, she’s recruited to the top-secret Multiverse Investigations Unit.
Hidden in the parking lot of San Francisco Police HQ, the unit investigates murders by sending officers to parallel universes in which the victim is still alive – for now.
Alex needs to prove herself. With the help of the mysterious Sarita Jones, the bizarrely-bearded Sergeant Mike Long and Schrödinger the quantum cat, can she track down the murderer, prevent the same crime from happening in a parallel version of San Francisco, and get back before closing time?
Murder in the Multiverse follows physics postgrad Alex Strand as she ponders the possibility of parallel universes and Schrödinger’s quantum thought experiments, whilst visiting said universes to investigate murder and returning home to her cat, who may be dead or alive at any given time!
The murder mystery involved is a classic locked-room mystery. Claire Pope is a recluse and takes that status so seriously that she doesn’t even like to open her blinds and see the outside world, let alone leave her apartment or let anyone in. And yet, somehow someone managed to murder her within her safe space.
Alex gets pulled into the investigation by SFPD’s special quantum team, operating out of a van in the police HQ carpark which bears similarities to a certain well-known police box in terms of inner and outer dimensions. Turns out the team can also ‘jump’ universes, with certain restrictions and side effects. And not everyone may be exactly as they first seem.
The sci-fi aspects here: gluons, doppelgangers, Cheshire cats and other various quantum thingies, can make the mystery plot a little hard to follow in places, as the normal rules of clues and suspects don’t really apply. It’s pretty hard to guess whodunnit and how, when you’re not even sure what is possible!
Still, Alex and Shrew are immediately endearing characters; and Mike and the team equally intriguing. There is so much potential here, because mysteries abound in every direction as the reader slowly learns about the new world/s as the main plot unfolds, and Silicon City is a treasury of fascinating technology and societal mores.
I look forward greatly to Alex’s further adventures in The Hive and beyond. That is, if she manages to survive this first one with a greater success rate than her quantum cat…!
She stumbled into the door and her face landed in her coat. It smelled of the Big Mac Rik had dropped on it earlier. She felt for the light switch and the room jumped into life.
She turned to survey her mess. The monitor she’d caught with her head sat on the workbench at a precarious angle in the center of the floor, a growing puddle beneath it. Hovering six inches above it was the face of a tabby cat.
Only the face. The legs, tail and body were missing. The ears were nowhere to be seen.– R.E. McLean
Find more from R.E. McLean at her website here, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.
Murder in the Multiverse is available on Amazon right now!
Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the blog tour (details on the poster below) for more great reviews and content…
Bookshine And Readbows 