The Mercy Killer [Hardcover]

Tom Carter, 41, is childishly demanding, verbally and sexually abusive of his wife, Carol, and just plain rude--venting his anger and frustration at being told he has terminal cancer, with only nine months to live. In British author Fleetwood's intricate, unsettling psychological drama, Tom gets more than he bargained for when he advertises for someone to kill him--or help him kill himself--when his illness worsens. Rick Austen, a young, disturbed artist with a rich fantasy life and an obsession with the macabre, gets the job and becomes deeply involved in Tom's desperate attempts at pyschological self-destruction. The ominous tone of the story's opening neatly contributes to suspense as Fleetwood's British-accented New Yorkers play complex mind games involving Tom's rage; Carol's love and anger; and Rick's alternate fascination and disgust with Tom and sympathetic attraction to Carol. Masterfully building narrative tension to the decisive, unexpected climax, the author reveals the hair-trigger balance between raw emotion and the rational, established surface of daily existence.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Euthanasia-minded terminal cancer patient meets disturbed young man who just might oblige--even if the patient changes his mind about getting killed--in this overdrawn page-turner from the prolific Fleetwood (The Past, 1987; Paradise, 1986; etc.). Successful businessman Tom Carter is into power--he treats his filmmaker-wife Carol, his mistress Christine, and even his secretary Rose like dirt--and isn't about to be slowed down by hearing that he has only a few months to live. Instead, his ad in the New York Review of Books (naturally) puts him in touch with erratic painter Rick Austen, whose devoted sister Cassie spends her time running interference between Rick and the rest of the world. Tom hires Rick to kill him, but thinks better of it after making a down payment. Too late: Rick, who's begun to tail Tom from woman to woman, is so appalled at his petty cruelty that he'd love to kill him for free. This striking, familiar situation isn't enough for a book, but Fleetwood tries gamely, showing us Rick meeting Carol, Carol meeting Cassie, Tom consulting three Catholic priests, Tom taking up with a slatternly prostitute, Carol and Cassie going to see the prostitute . . . and throwing in a serial killer who's dispatching street bums--a man who'll give the strained finale a last, incredible twist. One speedy read--the price per minute you'll spend with this book is off the chart. Despicable Tom, though, may linger in your memory like a bad restaurant meal. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Written by the author of "The Girl Who Passes for Normal", which won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and "The Order of Death", this is a chilling novel about a sick man who advertises for somebody to kill him and then regrets this.