Kill the Next One Audiobook By Federico Axat cover art

Kill the Next One

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Kill the Next One

By: Federico Axat
Narrated by: Maxwell Hamilton
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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.

Crime Thrillers Thriller & Suspense Psychological Crime Suspense Murder Fiction Exciting

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
"Compelling . . . A spectacular mind-meld of a psychological thriller . . . Axat brilliantly creates an environment permeated by doubt and the anxiety it perpetuates. The story is chilling, but Axat has the skill to infuse it with humanity while maintaining the nightmarish atmosphere. Kill the Next One is a recipe baked to perfection."—Lauren O?Brien, Shelf Awareness (starred)
"Nightmare imagery, mind-bending plot twists, and a kaleidoscopic storytelling style lend [Kill The Next One] a vertiginous air, but at the core of this literary fever dream lies an elegantly crafted and emotionally resonant mystery that astonishes, devastates, and satisfies in equal measure."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A psychological thriller that will take you for a hell of a ride and leave you whiplashed from all the twists and turns. . . . I promise you have no idea where this is going!"—BookRiot
"Kill the Next One starts fast and never lets up. The first third of the novel packs more twists, turns, and tension than most contemporary thrillers do in their entirety. Axat has a knack both for dialogue and for prose that constantly walks a fine line between reality and surreality. . . . A satisfying read for fans of horror novels, as well as lovers of creepy thrillers. Also, this novel has more plot twists than all of M. Night Shyamalan's filmography put together. The setup is effective and makes readers sit up and pay attention . . . A very tense, smartly crafted novel about illusions and the power of our decisions."—Gabino Iglesias, LitReactor
"Axat harnesses that uncertainty to build suspense and creates an intriguing, mind-bending thriller in the vein of Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island."—Booklist
All stars
Most relevant
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.

Open the door

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

great story

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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.

Not Exciting, but Not Predictable

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

Hang in there!

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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.

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

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