Kill the Next One

By: Federico Axat

Narrated by: Maxwell Hamilton

In this audacious psychological thriller where nothing is what it seems, a man facing death makes a life-changing choice that puts him—and the people he loves—in serious trouble.

Ted McKay had it all: a beautiful wife, two daughters, a high-paying job. But after being diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, he finds himself with a gun to his temple, ready to pull the trigger. Then the doorbell rings.

A stranger makes him a proposition: why not kill two deserving men before dying? The first target is a criminal, and the second is a man with terminal cancer who, like Ted, wants to die. After executing these kills, Ted will become someone else's next target, like a kind of suicidal daisy chain. Ted understands the stranger's logic: it's easier for a victim's family to deal with a murder than with a suicide.

However, as Ted commits the murders, the crime scenes strike him as odd. The targets know him by name and possess familiar mementos. Even more bizarrely, Ted recognizes locations and men he shouldn't know. As Ted's mind begins to crack, dark secrets from his past seep through the fissures.

Kill the Next One is an immersive psychological thriller from an exciting new voice.

©2016 Federico Axat (P)2016 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

Nominated for the Crime Writers Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award

One of the Best Thrillers of 2016—BookRiot

"There's a perverse symmetry to the way things work in this mind-bending psychological thriller by the Argentine author Federico Axat, translated here by David Frye. . . . Truth, illusion and downright deceit keep crossing invisible lines in this hallucinatory plot. . . . He expands on these mystifying events in imaginative ways. . . . Federico Axat is the kind of hypnotic writer you love to read but can never entirely trust."—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

"The most clever and surreal crime novel of 2016 . . . An extraordinary murder mystery."—Vick Mickunas, Dayton Daily News

"Kill The Next One is a serious rabbit hole of a book.... there's much more to this dizzying maze of a thriller than [its] head-bending opening—and you might want to avoid reading it at night."—Seattle Review of Books

Open the door

Well damn...
This was a series whiplashes that I really just wasn't expecting from this book.
Totally worth the missed hours of sleep spent listening in rapture to what w as s next to come.

great story

I absolutely love this story I was legitimately surprised by the ending narrator was annoying

Not Exciting, but Not Predictable

The story is a bit of a maze between figuring out what is real and what is in the main character's mind. I found it amusing that a possum is a main character. It didn't absorb my attention for excitement, but the first 2/3 of the book demands attention because the character's mind jumps between thoughts and places so many times.

Hang in there!

Beginning is a bit confusing, but then it all comes together into a great story!

Wtf.... Holy S***... Wait, what just happened?

I am a big fan of books that fuck with your mind. Yet I have yet listened to a book that achieved the level of mindfuckery that is Federico Axat’s Kill The Next One. It’s like a mindfucked brain had carnal relationships with an equally corrupted cerebrum and gave birth to a mutant of whatthefuckery. It’s a novel so brilliant and unexpected that to even name its genre seems to be too much of a spoiler. At no point in the novel did I feel like I had a grip on the reality of the novel, until the very end. Well, at least until the final sentence of the epilogue, which sent my Parietal Lobe reeling once again. Yet, this was no esoteric stream of conscienceless literary hoity toity snorefest. It was highly accessible with characters you grew to care about, and a truly rewarding experience. One of my favorite listens in a long time.

It’s hard to truly evaluate narrator Maxwell Hamilton’s narration other than to say I was so immersed in the multilayered reality of the novel, if there were any issues with his narration, I failed to notice it. Sometimes it takes a great narrator to enhance a bad book, but equally it takes a smart narrator to know when his job is just to keep the reader sucked into a brilliant story, and never get in its way.

JUST AMAZING

I love it it’s so exciting and awesome its like a mystery that doesn’t want to unravel but then it does and it explodes in your face...I mean it is a slow burn like Frankenstein and the audio is amazing super high quality! :-)

w.o.w.

this book is incredible. dark and fascinating. I highly recommend lovers of psychological fiction read this

Good one.

Enjoyed everything about this one. Good narration, and plot. Just the right length. Kept me in suspense.

Finally, something original

If you could sum up Kill the Next One in three words, what would they be?

Beware the Possum

Any additional comments?

Really kept me guessing. Stick with this one! You'll inevitably feel confused for much of the beginning of this book because we're seeing the world through Ted's eyes, and his reality changes again and again. Every time we think we have a grip on his world it disintegrates and remakes itself. No character has been this misled by his circumstances since the Guy Pierce character in the 90's movie "Memento." After reading several disappointing, predictably dreary mystery books this came as a refreshing surprise. Maybe not for everybody, but certainly different!

Fantastic Thriller!

This is not a typical psychological thriller. Just when I thought I knew where this story was going the author grabbed me my the gut & making me say out loud "oh my G*D" ... hearing that some seemingly insignificant moment I'd read chapters ago becoming tantamount in importance. This is not a quick read or something you should binge - this is something I sipped, savored and did not rush through because it was so amazingly enjoyable. Five stars. If you're a fan of mind frak movies & tv show like HBO's Westworld, USA's Mr. Robot or the movie The Game, you'll love this suspenseful novel. Extra kudos to the translator & the terrifically talented narrarator.