Maddy Young Books in Order

The Maddy Young books slip out of straight thriller territory and into speculative fiction. Maddy is an almost lawyer who dies unexpectedly and wakes up in a place called Two, a city that looks like a slightly skewed version of our own world. The people there are all dead, yet they have the same bodies and ages they had at the moment they died.

New arrivals like Maddy spend their first stretch at the Two Adjustment Facility, a kind of orientation center for the afterlife. There he meets Berlin, a seven year old who forgot her insulin, Darrel, who drowned, and Dr Raleigh, the counselor who tries to keep everyone steady while they process what has happened. Social networks exist here too, including Deadbook, a local equivalent of a familiar site where Maddy reconnects with people he knew on Earth.

On the surface, Two offers a second chance. Maddy was getting ready to retake the bar exam on the day he died, and he is told he can still become a public defender. People work, date, rent apartments, and line up at coffee shops much the way they did before. The book has fun with the little differences, from brand names that are just off to celebrities who kept on making movies after their deaths in our world.

Underneath the dark comedy is a growing unease. Women in Two cannot get pregnant, no one will explain who the group known as the Borns really are, and shadowy authorities always seem to know exactly where residents are. Rules are enforced without warning and some questions clearly make the wrong people nervous.

Maddy may think of himself as an ordinary guy, but he was a would be public defender for a reason, and the same instincts push him to start pulling on the loose threads around him. The more he learns about Two, the less it looks like a benign second life and the more it feels like a controlled experiment with its own agenda.

The result is a blend of sci fi, mystery, and character study. The setting lets Nick Pirog play with ideas about justice, free will, and what people would do if they got another run at life, while still delivering chases, reveals, and cliff hangers. Readers who enjoy big questions wrapped in a fast moving story will find a lot to explore with Maddy Young.