Denver author Stephen White leaves his comfort zone way behind to good effect in his 14th novel, “Kill Me.”
White has become a New York Times best-selling author thanks to his thriller-mystery series starring Alan Gregory. Gregory is a Boulder-based psychologist who has a knack for winding up in murder mysteries.
This time out, however, Gregory plays a minor supporting role as White tells the story through a protagonist who describes himself as an “anonymous rich white guy.”
And he stays that way – at least as far as his name is concerned. But the reader comes to learn about him as he tells his story. He is 42, a happily married father of one, with another child on the way. As a young man he invented a medical device that made him rich.
But above all, he is an adrenaline junkie of the highest order. He uses his private jet to ferry his friends and himself around the world to enjoy risky adventures, such as mountain climbing and helicopter skiing.
He and five friends are on such a skiing trip in the Canadian Rockies. As they prepare to ski down an extreme slope on the Bugaboos, magnificent but jagged mountains in British Columbia, a phone rings.
One of his skiing party carries a satellite phone so his wife can reach him should their sick child suffer a setback. It’s her, telling him that another adventurer friend has had a diving accident in an ocean sea cave off the coast of Belize. Deprived of oxygen for too long, he is in a vegetative state with little hope of improvement.
With no other choice, the skiers try to shake off the news and focus all their attention on the dangerous task ahead – skiing down the mountain to reach their helicopter.
A cornice on which the protagonist is standing gives way, throwing him tumbling down the mountain. He misses two trees at the bottom, which saves him from major injury.
But the fall and the friend’s diving accident coupled so closely together cause him to tell his skiing companions that if he ever becomes incapacitated he wants them to kill him.
They all laugh him off. But later one of them puts him in touch with a shadowy group that offers just that service, promising his death will not look like a suicide.
Our unnamed hero signs up with the service, eagerly agreeing to the conditions that once he pays the contract in full, it is irreversible. That is also true for the heath parameters he sets. Once an illness or accident causes him to violate a parameter, the contract is activated.
Of course, soon afterward, medical tests show he has a brain aneurysm. That, along with the arrival in his life of a teenage son of whom he knew nothing about, sets this thriller in motion.
White does his usual excellent job at building his characters and providing them with motivation. And the situation gives the author plenty of chances to ponder the meaning of love, sacrifice and selfishness on a large scale.
His fans will find this novel more challenging than any of his others as he plays with the chronological order of events. This is not an easy literary device to use as a means to heighten tension, but White pulls it off smoothly and effectively.
Thriller aficionados should pick this up on a Friday evening when they have no other plans for the weekend.
Staff writer Ed Will can be reached at 303-820-1694 or ewill@denverpost.com.
“Kill Me”
By Stephen White
Dutton, 402 Pages, $25.95
