Kill The Next One (La Ultima Salida) is a psychological suspense thriller by Argentinian author Federico Axat.
This international debut has been acclaimed in twenty-nine countries. Unlike anything else you'll read, he manages to hold the disparate threads of several realities together to a satisfying finish.
You won't be able to put it down.
The dreamlike plot changes with almost every chapter. Ted McKay had it all - family, money, business - when he is told he has an inoperable brain tumour. Attempting suicide with a gun to his head, there is a knock at the door. A man from a secret Organization knows what he wants to do but proposes an alternative: have one in their "suicide circle" kill him instead. It's neater and easier on the family. To join this circle you must deliver justice by killing one person it has been proven got away with a murder, then kill the next person in the circle. He complies, but discovers the next person in the circle did not want to be killed.
Attempting to commit suicide with a gun to his head, there is a knock on the door, but this time Ted recalls the previous experience and knows it is the man from the Organization. He decides not to answer it, until he reads a handwritten note to himself: Open the door. It's the only way out. This time he investigates the victims and the Organization itself, discovering odd similarities to his own life. This is just the beginning.
With disturbing hallucinations and nightmares, he wakes up in a hospital under the care of a therapist. He has been there for months dealing with horrific visions of women being murdered. It becomes clear from his specific knowledge, and ability to lead them to the bodies, he must be a serial killer. Ted convinces everyone, including me, he is guilty, but in a thriller like this, nothing is what it seems.
This does twist almost every chapter, kudos to Axat for pulling this off. With every chance to lose the reader along the way, he manages to flash forward and backward, flipping the script and keeping it interesting. There was never a time I felt let down in a new direction. At 407 pages, each diversion is riveting, the pace is fast and involving. There was also no way to discover exactly what was happening: we are as surprised as Ted, the amnesiac schizophrenic lost in a nightmare maze of delusions pulling him down into darkness.
If you like a mind-bending trip in the style of Stephen King/Christopher Nolan, this will certainly entertain. The back cover is filled with acclaim for satisfying every expectation, including ...purely addictive ...everyone who starts reading the first ten pages will end up reading four hundred pages in less than a week... Yes, Axat pulls it off.
2016 / Hardcover / 407 pages
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