A review by raven88
Kill Them with Kindness by Will Carver

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

5.0

Well, it’s that time again where my brain is stretched to its full capacity, my well-thumbed thesaurus is close at hand, and the need to knuckle down and try and review yet another genius novel from Will Carver is upon me. I love this guy’s writing, but oh boy it’s a challenge to review…

With us all having experienced a pandemic in our recent history, much of this book will resonate with many of us, as many people died and the world slowed, but within the overarching despair small glimmers of compassion began to appear, hinting at humanity’s chance to redeem itself from its propensity for selfishness and self absorption. A global pandemic orchestrated by the most powerful nations in the world, and one still small voice that wants to circumvent its deadly outcomes by striving to make the world a better place, a kinder place, a compassionate place, lies at the heart of Kill Them With Kindness, Carver’s interrogation of global politics and chicanery…

Carver’s unstinting critique of the perpetrators of this fictional pandemic very much fits the adage of art imitating life and vice versa. The Prime Minister Harris Jackson is a floppy haired buffoon of a man, with “no valve that can shut off the poison that drips from his idiotic brain to his blathering mouth“. He is louche, entitled, a predatory fornicator and a man who believes himself to be coming to the country’s rescue to be forgiven of  “all his bad decisions and infidelities and broken promises.”

I don’t know why, but he really reminded me of someone. It’ll come to me.

In actuality Jackson is one of the perpetrators of this global conspiracy to unleash a virus purely to assert control and to make a good deal of cash for himself and his chums in the process. As much as this is a fictional representation of the power that is held in the upper echelons of governments across the world, the uncomfortable truths it actually reveals resonate strongly throughout, and our position as disposable pawns in the bigger game is ruthlessly exposed. As they prepare to unleash this killer virus on the plebeian populace, a quiet, unassuming man takes it on himself to plan an entirely different outcome.

Dr Haruto Ikeda is himself a kind, philosophical man, as much a believer in science and spirituality, who sees the world’s troubles and wants to make a difference, “Ikeda is not concerned with turning bad people into good people. It’s about all people. It’s about action. It’s about making kindness real rather than a motivational poster that people quickly forget.” From his seemingly naive solution to the world’s ills, that it can really be made better by simply making people kinder, to his first faltering experiments in the lab, Ikeda is a man of probity and dignity, whose decency would be little appreciated by those who seek to prosper from others’ suffering. Supported by his equally compassionate and stalwart wife, Kimiko (behind every great man…) he goes about his business stealthily and secretly, and begins to see the difference his vaccine is beginning to make in the world, it seems that a form of compassionate nirvana is imminent. Carver uses this change in peoples’ morality and behaviour to include his eviscerating tangential rants at the general ills and stupidity of society. Social media, fake media, vacuous celebrities, immorality, vanity, animal cruelty, environmental destruction and viral conspiracy theories all come under his unstinting gaze, many of which will find the reader nodding sagely in agreement. As the world begins to turn into a more kind and compassionate one, so the naysaying Instacrap keyboard warriors appear to try and undo what Ikeda has worked so hard to achieve. Needless to say, you’ll be rooting for Ikeda throughout, despite the attempts of others to thwart him.

As I emerged blinking into the light from this assault on my intellectual capacity, so much of this book resonated with me, and I finished it with a competing sense of despair and hopefulness. Despair that so much of the bad stuff both globally, war, greed, suppression and locally, in terms of widespread solipsism, bias and self interest shows no signs of a turnaround, but maybe that sometimes the good people, the little people can make some kind of difference if only on a small scale. Well, that’s the dream. Once again Carver holds a mirror up to the world’s ills in his own inimitable style, calling out stupidity and denouncing global conspiracies. It’s a brainteasing, hackle-raising read, but pertinent and darkly funny as always.

Embrace the madness and remember if nothing important happened today, you really should have been reading this book instead.

Highly recommended.