Stephen White is at his best in this thriller which opens up discussion of a coming phenomenon
called Death Insurance. It just might be what you get for the person who has everything.
A mystery man who has total control of his life, his family and his business starts to
think that there might be something else that he doesn't want to leave to chance. He wants
to decide when and how he will die. He goes into therapy with psychologist Alan Gregory,
one of White's prime characters in Missing Persons, and finds a group called Death
Angels, Inc, whom he contracts to do the deed when he gets to a point in his quality of
life that makes him less than able to maintain his style and flair that he wants to be
remembered for. However, as with all good thrillers, he later finds that this is not
exactly the way he wants to have the end played out and then it becomes a race against
time and the Death Angels to save his life and stop the execution. Does he succeed?
This is a new take on an age-old question: should a person have the ability to choose
when to die? Should he take the choice and live with it, or should he leave it up to
the fates and circumstances of the life he has chosen to live? Does he have the right to
give himself a time limit? What happens if he changes his mind; can he stop the impending
ending, or does he have that right?
Kill Me will make you think about all of these questions while playing a game
with your mind. This book made me more than a little uncomfortable and caused me to think.
The premise of this story was a good one and I thank White for bringing this conundrum
to my attention. However the chips fall, I really don't think arranging for your own
death is a viable way out, as it leaves others with an unfinished story. Do you think
that everyone should be able to leave when the game gets a bit sticky? I think that we
have all been groomed to stay here on this earth and fight for every breath that we can
take for as long as we can grab and hold it in our lungs. Kill Me leaves you wondering
about the final choice.