Book Review: Kill Someone, by Luke Smitherd

A useless, whiny punk is manipulated into a highly contrived trap.

Flying Body Press, 2016, 295 pages

Here are the rules.

Method: you can't use a gun. You can't use explosives. You can't use poison. It has to be up close and personal. You don't have to worry about leaving evidence; that will be taken care of.

Victim: no one suicidal. No one over the age of 65. No one with a terminal illness.

Choose your method. Choose your victim.

Chris Summer was a 21-year-old call centre worker. A dropout. A nobody, still living at home with his parents. Then one day the Man in White came to his family's house, offering a seemingly impossible choice: kill a random stranger - one of Chris' choosing - within 12 days in order to save the lives of five kidnapped siblings. Refuse, and they die slowly and painfully.

The clock is ticking, the Man in White is watching and Chris has some very important choices to make. This is a tale of fear, indecision, confused masculinity and brutal violence - a story of a coddled young man thrust into a world of sharp metal and bone. Ask yourself if you could do it. Then ask yourself who you would choose.

( I wanted the main character to get thrown off a cliff. That made it hard to enjoy the story, which was actually interesting. )

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