Exploring Dementia in The Last Devil to Die

I recently listened to the fourth book in the Thursday Murder Club series, The Last Devil to Die. The book opens with the death of an antique shop owner who is a friend of the Thursday Murder Club. The book revolves around the hunt for his killer. I found the book enjoyable, but the most moving part was the journey Stephen and Elizabeth face together about the progression of his dementia. I don’t believe that the dementia was formally brought up in the previous three books. Elizabeth mentions that he is changing, forgetting things, and living with him is getting increasingly complex, but the word dementia isn’t directly used. In this book, Stephen’s dementia is brought up at the beginning. Stephen receives a letter he wrote to himself months or years earlier stating that he has dementia. In the letter, he also tells himself that he doesn’t want Elizabeth to be his caregiver. They are then faced with a difficult decision.

  It’s not stated until much later that Elizabeth is going to give Stephen the option of assisted suicide. At first, it was presented as if she was going to find a memory care unit for him to stay in, and I think Joyce presents that idea through a journal entry, which peppers the books in this series. Elizabeth takes Stephen to see an old KGB contact, whom she had worked with for MI6, and introduces him to me through her work. He asks Stephen how much pain he is in, and Stephen tells him he is in more pain than he can say. Stephen is aware that he is slowly losing his mind, his memory, and everything that makes him, him. Losing himself and being aware that it is happening slowly is too much to bear. In the end, the contact gives Stephen an injection that he self-administers. The way Stephen died made sense to me, given his relationship with Elizabeth in previous books. Having worked in memory care, seeing people slowly wither, losing the ability to swallow, speak, and eventually breathe, I deeply related to the pain Elizabeth and Stephen were experiencing. I also appreciated how the book dealt with the topic of assisted suicide. Joyce knows what has happened and disagrees with Stephen and Elizabeth’s choices. 

This being a book series I was introduced to by my grandmother, who died a few months ago and needed round-the-clock care due to her stroke that happened in 2019, I had a front seat to the stressors of coordinating the care of an elderly family member and how those choices can be complicated. I think everyone can agree that the topic of assisted suicide is controversial. What I believe occurs to fewer people is the controversy that can arise when families are trying to decide what to do with someone who is simply aging and can no longer fully take care of themselves. Private caregiving is prohibitively expensive, and so is assisted living. Some might have long-term care insurance that can help defray the burden, but ot all seniors are so lucky. If the option, for example, is for the elder to live with a family member, this can lead to complications; the person they live with naturally carries the caregiving burden. This can affect their personal and professional lives. Sometimes, the resentment of being the primary caregiver can bleed into their other familial relationships. Elizabeth and Stephen’s relationship is a microcosm of an issue millions of families face daily. 

Another aspect of the book I enjoyed was the mysterious box at the center of the story. The antique owner is killed for a box that was used to transport drugs from the Middle East. At first, we are led to believe that the box is nothing important. Everyone is after the drugs inside the missing box. We only find out later that while the drugs are valuable, the box is what everyone is interested in. The box’s provenance is brought up, and my understanding is that provenance refers to where an antique comes from. This is also timely, as the relationships between artifacts and their journeys to where they reside today are increasing discussion in historical communities. I enjoyed the book immensely, and I would recommend it. The fifth book comes out later this year, and I can’t wait.