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It’s likely we’ve all thought about it at one time or another, or we know someone who has. “If I ever get like that, kill me.” “If I have no quality of life, I want to die.” This is the theme of author Stephen White's new book, Kill Me.
But it’s not quite what you think. It’s not about placing a call to Dr. Kevorkian when you can’t take the pain of an illness or injury and you’re ready to die. In Kill Me, the protagonist, who remains anonymous throughout the book, is a “rich young white guy” with a family. He’s also a patient of Dr. Alan Gregory, the star psychologist of several other Stephen White novels. The man learns about an organization called the Death Angels that, for a hefty price, will arrange for his death if and when his quality of life declines, so he decides to take out a contract on himself.
It made sense at the time. It made even more sense when, after taking out the
contract, the man is diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. But maybe he should have thought about it a little harder when he learned that there’s no cancellation clause. Or maybe he didn’t quite understand that, unlike an assisted suicide where the patient makes the decision about when he or she is ready to die, the Death Angels' organization determines when he’s crossed the threshold making him ripe for the kill. He doesn’t know when; he doesn’t know where; he doesn’t know how.
Maybe you’re thinking, so what? He’s going to die anyway.
But what if he changes his mind? What if he’s not ready? What if he can’t stop the killer no matter what? Gripping, isn’t it?
This book is a different kind of thriller, grappling with a subject that each of us has probably thought about at one time or another. The plot is intriguing, exciting, and unpredictable as White deals with the physical and mental aspects of making the decision to die and the twists and turns of losing the capacity to control one’s own life, no matter how rich or powerful one might be.
Kill Me is the fifteenth book in Stephen White's Dr. Alan Gregory series.
While I haven’t read any of White’s other books, Kill Me has piqued my curiosity enough to take a look at them. The book debuts in March 2006
and can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com. It’s definitely worth a read.
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