Review of 'Exit' by Belinda Bauer

Death, in the end, beats us all. The ultimate end of life is inevitable but for some, it's harder to leave this world than others. Can we choose to leave of our own accord if we no longer have a quality of life? Can we get help if we make that fatal decision?

Not everyone can afford to travel to Switzerland for assisted suicide. Enter the Exiteers, good men and women whose job is to sit next to a terminal patient and witness the end of their life. Exiteers can't actively help the patients but they can provide the silver cylinder and plastic mask needed for the final act.

This is the background of the warm and witty Exit by Belinda Bauer (Bantam Press, January 2021), a brilliantly plotted and totally unique crime novel.

Seventy-five-year-old Felix Pink is an Exiteer, a good man working under a pseudonym with an honest desire to help others whose lives are no longer bearable. After all, if he didn't do it, who would? With his experience, Felix serves as a mentor for young Amanda, who joins him to witness a dying man's final breath. "I don't think I can do this," Amanda says. "You'll be fine," Felix assures her. What could possibly go wrong?

But something goes horribly wrong, and soon Felix is on run from the police and suspected of murder.

Exit is a whodunit/whydunit mystery but its strength is in its characters—real people with real lives and emotions. Felix is weighted down by events in his past. Calvin Bridge, the policeman on his trail, wonders why he ever agreed to take on the "worst job ever."  Skipper, the elderly man who planned to commit suicide with the Exiteers' assistance, comes to realize that his grandson is after a bit more than what is promised to him in the will. What make the characters even more human is the fact that many of them have pets to care for.

Exit is not exactly what you expected in a crime novel but exactly what you need for an enjoyable read.

Belinda Bauer grew up in England and South Africa. She has worked as a journalist and screenwriter, and her script The Locker Room earned her the Carl Foreman/Bafta Award for Young British Screenwriters. Her debut novel, Blacklands, Belinda was awarded the British Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger for best crime novel of 2010. Her novel Snap (2018) was longlisted for that year's Man Booker Prize.