The Easy Way Out It’s easy to have a view on issues like euthanasia, until they actually affects you. Ewan has been working as a nurse all his life, and now he’s drifted into a position where he is an assistant in assisted suicides. He’s fine about the job, he really is, until it starts affecting him after work. He’s in denial about his father’s death, and can’t face the fact that his mother, Viv, who has Parkinsons, may be facing death soon. The pressure piles up, and Ewan’s thoughts about assisted death start to become more complex. Set in a very imaginable near future, this is a well written book that uses fiction to explore the difficult idea of assisted death. It’s written by a palliative care nurse, and that shows in the insightful analysis. It is, despite the difficult topic, very readable, and I read it in a few nights, gripped to keep on going right until the end to find out what Evan finally decides.

The Easy Way Out is released today