An Ethical Guide to Murder, Jenny Morris

Somewhere between fantasy, science fiction and crime fiction, with a nod to family tragedy, chicklit style girls out of control, the ups and downs of long term friendships, romance and relationship tensions, there will need to be a sub-category that AN ETHICAL GUIDE TO MURDER will slot into. In other words, which shelf this one goes onto is going to be a creative choice, because it's nothing if not very different.

The story revolves around Thea, and her secret power of life and death. Just by touching someone she can tell how long they have to live. She can also transfer life from one person to another - something she finds out the hard way when her oldest, best friend Ruth suffers a head injury on a night out.

Other than this particular "life hack" Thea's a bit of a walking disaster area. After the death of her parents in a car crash (which she was also in) as a very young child she was taken in and raised by her grandfather. A distant, curmudgeonly old man who she loves, but doesn't always get. Her best friend Ruth was another "outsider" when they were young, both of them shy in their own ways, both had tricky childhoods (Ruth was very ill when young) and both of them have come out of that time as firm, but very different, friends. Thea pursued a career in the law (very haphazardly), ending up working in HR with an old flame of Ruth's as her constantly annoyed boss, Ruth went into medicine and works all hours in all sorts of places trying to cure everyone she comes across. Meanwhile Thea's got this power, and she's using it. Aided and abetted by an old flame / new love, lawyer Sam, they are on a bit of a crusade, creating the 'Ethical Guide to Murder' to identify and qualify victims, although Thea's not above a bit of personal score settling if the occasion arises.

A not even vaguely believable central conceit in this one is made considerably more appealing by the characterisations. Thea's a flake, Ruth's very serious, Sam seems a bit too good to be true. Thea's one of those women that is fun to read about, but would be a nightmare to know in real life (even without the killing / reading people's lifespans bit). She's often profoundly annoying and self-centred, something that considered, caring Ruth's kind of okay with, until she begins to realise that Thea and Sam are, indeed, up to something.

Connection with Thea, and a liking (probably not the right word) of her, is going to be the key for readers as there's not a lot of surprises in great chunks of this plot - the identification of the victims, the stealing of lifespan, and gifting it forward, does get repetitive at points, as does the "ethical" component of it which is mostly pretty black and white, alleviated by the twists and turns in the people that Thea chooses to "save". Hang in there though, because the big kicks come at the end, as Sam and Thea's lives start to implode, financial crimes come to light and Thea starts to question herself. Interestingly as the wheels start to fall off, what started out as an ethical approach to murder, switches gently into a moving morality play, and consequences and responsibility start to play on minds.