DON'T TELL ME HOW TO DIE

5 stars out of 5

I first became acquainted with this talented author by way of his collaborations with prolific and best-selling author James Patterson (specifically, in the NYPD Red series). But I've also read and enjoyed another in which he flew solo, so I didn't hesitate to grab this one. And I certainly wasn't disappointed.

In part, that's because I can relate. Like Maggie Dunn, who watched mostly unattached widows try to catch her still-hunky father after her mother died, I watched the same thing happen when my tall, white-haired father moved into an assisted living community shortly after my own mother passed away. "He's good looking and still walks upright," I told my husband at the time. "He'll get swooped on at the first breakfast he eats in the dining room."

My story had a great ending in the form of a sweet stepmother, who said yes when Dad was 86 years old. Maggie's, alas, did not; the vixen who set her sights on her father was a con artist extraordinaire. So when Maggie learned she'd inherited the same terminal disease as her mother, she vowed to find an appropriate candidate to become her soon-to-be-widowed husband's wife Sub 2 and the stepmother of their two kids.

The story is told through a ton of reminiscing, with chapters flipping through various time frames. And each time that happens, more background is revealed - almost always adding some kind of twist - right up to the end, when the roof blows off. Details, of course, I won't provide, but I will say I'm glad I got within an hour of the finish line in time to get it done right before bedtime - otherwise, it would have accompanied me because at that point, no way would I have put it down.

Nothing left to say, then, except I loved it - and I heartily thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to dive into a pre-release copy.

Don't Tell Me How to Die by Marshall Karp (Blackstone Publishing Inc., March 2025); 320 pp.