Exit

Recently I wrote about how my carefully crafted reading schedule goes up in flames every time I get a book by Sharon Bolton. Well, you’ll be relieved to know I gave myself a stern talking to. There’s a proper list to be followed so like a responsible adult I reached for the next book in the queue. Then I got the latest from Belinda Bauer.

*Sigh*….Here’s my review.

I should begin with a trigger warning for those of you passionate about garden gnomes. The book contains a scene that can only be described as utter lawn ornament carnage & it’s not pretty. So maybe skim that part. You’re welcome.

This is the story of how one simple mistake alters the lives of a handful of residents in the small village of Bideford. The cast is a show more mixture of decent folk & quirky oddballs who all weigh in as the book progresses. But the 2 main narrators are Felix Pink & PC Calvin Bridge.

Felix is a 75 year old widower. He lives a quiet, orderly life & has always played by the rules. After watching his wife lose a slow battle with dementia, Felix became an Exiteer…..one of a small group who witness the death of those who have chosen to end their suffering with assisted suicide. They work in pairs & for his next assignment, Felix is accompanied by new recruit Amanda.

They travel to the home of Charles Cann, an elderly man with cancer. One look & Felix knows it will be a short visit. In fact, he’s more worried about Amanda. Ah well, the first time is always the toughest. All they have to do is sit there so really, what could go wrong? Oh ye Gods, where to start…

In the blink of an eye, Felix goes from upstanding citizen to man on the run. Worse yet, someone called the cops which brings PC Calvin Bridge to the Cann residence.

Calvin is a 27 year old guy who is trying to remember why he became a cop. After a brief stint as a detective under DCI Kirsty King, he’s happy to be back in uniform & patrolling the streets. He knows the local criminal element well so when he gets a call about a home invasion, he figures he’ll have it solved by tea time. And he might have…if only he hadn’t found a body.

This is one of those reads where you should go in knowing as little as possible about the plot so I’ll quit while I’m ahead. But what you’ll find is a story that is just as much about the characters as who-dun-it. Compared to the author’s previous book, this is a slower paced tale full of warmth, humour & surprising twists.

It all kicks off with the body. Then we meet the cast & learn of the events & people that have shaped their lives. The MC’s are 2 men at very different stages but as the story progresses, both begin to reflect on the choices they’ve made. I particularly enjoyed Felix’s journey. When we first meet, he’s a man who is awaiting his own demise as he helps others on their way. But a funny thing happens as events spin out of control. He’s not allowed to passively stand by & is forced to participate in his life.

Bauer excels at characterization & with just a few sentences, even minor characters jump off the page. The dialogue is sharp & economical & as the pace picks up in the second half, it becomes an entertaining mix of mayhem & misunderstandings as characters race to either find or avoid each other.

It’s much more than a cleverly constructed murder mystery. Interspersed with devious twists & wry humour are moments that are poignant & all too familiar for those of us with elderly family members. Through Felix & Charles, we feel the heartache of losing someone bit by bit & frustration over the small things we gradually surrender with age. Multiple story lines eventually intersect & there are plenty of surprises in store. The ending brings the story full circle & I thought it was perfect. Wishing you red skies every night, Skipper.

Oops, I forgot to include a warning for those fond of vending machines. Oh well, you’ll get over it. Now, where did I put that reading list…. show less

I am so glad that I have continued to read books by this author! I really enjoyed Rubbernecker, but I was disappointed by subsequent books she wrote because they lacked originality and depth. This book, luckily, is a return to form: the characters are vivid, and the plot is clever, with an amazing and unexpected plot twist (which one of the characters notes, "you'd have to be pretty sick to see that coming"). The ending is a bit pat and almost veers into "cozy" mystery territory, but it includes a lovely story about getting the death you want. The writer returns to the themes of old age and euthanasia (the "good death") that she has explored in other books. Recommended for all libraries.

Felix Pink is a retired widower whose experiences have led him into becoming an exiteer, a volunteer who keeps the terminally ill and dying company when they decide to end their own lives, saving their families from legal jeopardy and providing comfort, but no physical assistance. The day Felix is paired with a new young partner named Amanda, things go badly wrong and the wrong man dies. Felix sees that the police are getting nowhere and he realizes that he will have to step in and figure out who set them up, while protecting both his one-time fellow volunteer and keeping a promise he makes to the man who should have died.

This book features the same detectives as Belinda Bauer's Booker-nominated novel, Snap, but as in that novel, they show more are secondary to the story being told. This read, to my utter delight, a lot like a Jackson Brodie mystery, only without Jackson Brodie. There's that same sense of a tangle of threads being eased apart and that moment when everything falls into place. Bauer has written some very engaging characters and interjected humor into the story without sacrificing verisimilitude or the impact of a murder on the people affected. Felix is a wonderful protagonist, a cranky octogenarian who misses his wife deeply and brings his dog Mabel along with him wherever he can. He's determined to do the right thing but isn't really sure what that is, and until he figures that out, he'll rectify the smaller harms. show less

Belinda Bauer's "Exit" is a surprisingly entertaining mixture of sad themes, intriguing characters, and laugh-out-loud humor. Felix Pink is a seventy-five-year-old retiree who still grieves for his late wife and son, whom he loved dearly. He has agreed to join forces with like-minded people when he volunteers to become an "Exiteer," someone who is present when terminally ill patients take their lives. Felix sticks to his routines. He visits his loved ones' graves regularly; tends to his dog, Mabel; and expects that he will continue his work as an Exiteer indefinitely. One fateful day, accompanied by a rookie Exiteer, things go terribly awry, and Felix is not only appalled but also guilt-ridden at his failure to prevent a tragic show more error.

Aside from Felix, we get to know Charles (Skipper) Cann, a former sailor who is dying of cancer; Skipper's grandson, Reggie, who is in serious financial trouble; Amanda, a beautiful young woman who may not be as innocent as she looks; Geoffrey Skeet, a former history teacher as well as the organizer of the Exiteers; and the police officers who investigate a murder in which Felix may be implicated. One of the cops is DC Calvin Bridge, an unhappy, insecure, and unambitious twenty-six-year-old, who gambles on the horses and has a family of whom he is deeply ashamed.

There is much hilarity, farce, and slapstick for a novel that deals with suicide, and the book's numerous red herrings keep us off-balance. Felix, hardly a daredevil, turns amateur sleuth in his effort to balance a desire for justice with his instinct for self-preservation. Although "Exit" is far from realistic, it is a thought-provoking look at how we face illness and view death, the ways in which greed and selfishness can pervert one's moral compass, and the terrible scourge of loneliness. In spite of its muddled conclusion, "Exit" is involving, and we grow to care about and admire Felix who, it turns out, is a man of compassion, tenacity, and inner strength. show less

Belinda Bauer’s Exit is a delightful, offbeat murder mystery novel.

“Felix Pink found the predictability comforting – even if the predictable outcome was death.”

Seventy-five year old Felix Pink is an ‘Exiteer’, a volunteer with a secret group that aids, but does not assist, terminally ill people to end their own lives. A minor breach in protocol by Felix’s new partner, Amanda, seems innocent enough until they discover that they have in fact witnessed the death of the wrong man.

What follows veers between tragedy and comedy as Felix tries to understand how such a mistake could have been made. It soon becomes clear that the Exiteer’s were set up, but by who, and why? The answer is far more complicated than one might expect, show more and I’m loathe to spoil the smart twists of the plot that implicates more than one person.

Felix is a charming protagonist, he lives with his dog Mabel, enjoys puzzles, and considers himself boring but steadfast. The loss of both his wife and son is his motivation for joining the Exiteers and he believes he is doing important work. When he realises a mistake has been made he is horrified, eager to protect his partner, the group, and make to amends.

There are several other characters of importance to the story including the Exiteer’s group leader, Geoffrey, Amanda, the family of the dead man, and the investigating officers, DCI Kirsty King and DC Calvin Bridge who astute readers may recognise from Bauer’s previous works.

This is a well crafted tale with a unique hook. Witty, clever and engaging, I really enjoyed Exit. show less

An uneven but satisfying reading experience.

Elderly (but not geriatric) widower Felix is on an assignment with his new partner, Amanda, as an Exiteer. Exiteers are a secret cell of people who anonymously volunteer who provide the means for people with fatal diseases to die. Unfortunately, as they sit in vigil with their latest client, the man fumbles the mask so badly that Amanda violates protocol and assists it onto his face. Awkward, but a potential learning mistake, until they discover the real client is still alive, and they’ve assisted his ailing, deadbeat son into the hereafter.

While Exit contains a number of clever ideas, one of my most significant challenges with the book is one of tone around the premise of the Exiteers. You show more see, I worked for a number of years as a hospice nurse, and for my entire nursing career as a cancer nurse, so I’ve seen many manifestations of both life and death at the end of the human lifespan. In fact, I believe that people should have a real, controlled way out at the end of their life, if they so choose. So this premise was a struggle, because Felix and his group have truly done a huge disservice to what should be a vital personal right.

That said, once I was able to take my feelings around that issue and put them into a little compartment in the scattered library of my mind, I was able to enjoy the story, particularly as the plot picked up. I hesitate to say any more without spoilers, so let me say that all this is just the beginning of the book. Though it begins with a definite feel of sadness, eventually there there’s somewhat of a comedy-of-errors feel of it as Felix tries to work through what he’s done, both emotionally and socially. This is compounded by his own feelings of loss and grief over the deaths of his wife and son:

“Nobody ever spoke of the relentless parking that was demanded by a relative in hospital with a prolonged illness. Twice a day, every day, in the dystopian concrete multi-storey that smelled of urine and smog. The constant change for the ticket machine. The long queue at the barrier. The forgetting where the car was. Was it this row? This level?”

However, much like many Shakespeare comedies, ‘all’s well that ends well.’

Narration jumps around, at first sticking with Felix, and then alternating with Constable Calvin Bridge, who is assisting DCI King with the investigation. Eventually more viewpoints are brought in. In fact, I think by the end, the reader will get a taste of everyone’s viewpoint, including the villain’s. Normally, it’s the kind of device that irritates me, but something about this story worked more like a play, with a large cast of characters, than as a single-person, character or plot-driven mystery. What was nice about that is that it helps sell it as a feel-good tale, knowing as we do the mental and emotional place the characters are coming from.

The pacing is perhaps the most challenging thing about it. The main plot doesn’t take off until 11%, and the wrinkles that really give it spark aren’t until 35%. Eventually, there are plenty of twists to keep the reader engaged, to the point where it becomes a little bananas, really. There are frequent humorous asides, such as when he tries to help take care of a cat, his accidentally developing relationship with the elderly neighbor lady, and when he tries his luck standing on a boat.

Ultimately, a fun tale to read that fans of British humor should particularly enjoy. Just remember to keep that personal-ethical-political box locked up tight and have some patience for the ride.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC show less

“The Exiteers existed to support people with terminal illnesses and for whom pain meant their lives were no longer bearable” That is the premise in this wonderful, gentle quintessential English crime novel. Felix Pink is in his mid 70’s, tragically his wife and son have both passed. In order to inject some purpose into his daily routine (apart from walking Mabel his canine companion) he volunteers some time to “Exit” and by do doing hopes that his presence, together with a co Exeteer brings some peace and tranquillity to their client as he/she travels from this world to the next. As our story opens Felix and Amanda are attending the bed of Albert Cann, in his final moments. Their role is passive, they are not there to aid or show more help but rather silent observers awaiting Albert’s final intake of breath. Unfortunately a mistake occurs and the proceeding drama not only affects are volunteers but a number of residents in this sleepy Devon hamlet.

Belinda Bauer is wonderful at leading an unexpected reader down a certain path confronting and revealing the perpetrator of this dreadful crime….or so you thought :) …because just at that moment you are totally within her playful grasp, and the person you are about to confront is nothing but an innocent bystander! This is writing of the highest order, as soothing as English breakfast tea and Devon scones with jam! The pace is slow, unhurried, characters gently introduced and their role fully explored and explained. Belinda Bauer is such a vital and important addition to British crime writing. Her penmanship is fresh, her storytelling exquisite interspaced with gentle humour. Exit is a joy to read. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the good people at netgalley for a gratis copy in exchange for an honest review and that is what I have written show less