The Last Exit

October 15, 2020
A dystopian thriller whose heroine, aided by an infallible AI implant, seeks the malefactors behind a deliberately engineered epidemic. Life in the 2030s is good in some ways (LSD is legal, men can give birth), bad in others (Miami Beach is no more, Disney has bought the National Park Service). The world of Detective Jennifer Lu of the Metro D.C. Police's Elder Abuse Unit mainly revolves around two more personal poles: her mistreatment as a child by her monstrous mother, who's now in a nursing home with dementia, and the triumph of the "65 and Out" movement, which requires euthanasia for all parents of that age whose childless children want to get "the treatment" that will make them Timeless, prolonging their lives for decades longer. A chance remark Jen and her synth implant, Chandler, overhear while she's pursuing an assault case against White supremacist James O'Neil and witnessing a shooting involving Delmar Johnson Sr., a father who's not ready to die for Delmar Johnson Jr., alerts her to a broader menace: the possibility that cases of rapid onset spongiform encephalitis, once virtually unheard of, are spiking because of a counterfeit treatment that promises Timeless life but kills its victims swiftly. Warned off the assault case by O'Neil's Timeless father, 112-year-old billionaire Richard O'Neil, and shut down at every turn by her boss, Capt. Kyrie Brooks, Jen struggles to make headway against a monstrous conspiracy. All the while, Kaufman keeps the pot boiling by setting a series of illegal atrocities against the perfectly legal kind his world mostly accepts. A strong, richly imagined brew for stouthearted readers, with hints of a series to follow.

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from November 9, 2020
This outstanding series launch from Kaufman (The Possibility of Dreaming on a Night Without Stars), a sci-fi mystery set in the near future, introduces Jen Lu, of the Washington, D.C., PD’s Elder Abuse Unit, and her wisecracking sidekick, Chandler, an AI neocortical implant. In the U.S., the spread of advanced AI has caused unemployment to skyrocket, and an epidemic of an encephalitis variant is causing havoc. Parents can now, before they turn 65, opt for euthanasia so that their children can receive a modified longevity treatment once reserved for the super-rich, which would protect their offspring from the epidemic. Jen, who’s tasked with probing parents who refuse to accept the deal, learns that a product called Eden may be circulating that’s rumored to give anyone access to a long life. Her investigation becomes more urgent after people start aging rapidly, possibly as a result of using Eden. Exceptional worldbuilding (a court decides that personal service robots can’t be compelled to testify against their owners) is complemented by sympathetic characters and suspenseful plot twists. Kaufman is a writer to watch. Agent: Ginger Curwen, Julia Lord Literary Management.