What I want to say is that suicide is my choice. No-one else is to blame. Man seeks beautiful woman for the journey of a lifetime: Will you help me to die?
When Probation Officer Cate Austin is given her new assignment, she faces the highest-profile case of her career. Alice Mariani is charged with assisted suicide and Cate must recommend a sentence.
Alice insists her story is one of misinterpreted love, forcing those around her to analyse their own lives. Who is to decide what is normal and when does loyalty turn to obsession?
Investigating the loophole that lies between murder and euthanasia, Cate must now meet the woman who agreed to comply with her lover’s final request. Shocking revelations expose bitter truths that can no longer be ignored.
My thoughts: Ruth Dugdall does not pull her punches. Each book in this series covers serious themes and issues but without giving away her opinions.
This time it’s assisted suicide – a very contentious issue that a lot of people struggle with. But Ruth gives it the crime thriller treatment so Cate and the other characters don’t have to wrestle too much with their conscience, otherwise it might be too much.
Alice is a university lecturer in poetry, her preferred poet is Keats, who famously died very young of TB. She loves the beauty of his verses, but interacts with them without truly understanding the humanity in them.
When Cate is assigned to her, Alice is on bail pending sentencing over the death of her partner, a man she claims asked her to help him die. But as Cate investigates, interviewing Alice and other people around her, including the court appointed psychiatrist, other information emerges, facts that will alter everything, facts that show Alice’s version to be riddled with lies and reveal a very different woman.
I was a bit taken aback at some of the detail of the case, some of the things Alice had done, and how very willing she was to manipulate the system to get her own way, even when she was “winning”.
It’s a very clever, twisted case, one that Cate will have to work at to be the smarter player, as Alice is convinced she’s more intelligent than everyone around her and happily says so, trying to force Cate into a role she isn’t happy to fill. Gripping.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 