Charlie meets everyone – but only once. You might meet him in a hospital, in a warzone, or at the scene of traffic accident. Then again, you might meet him at the North Pole – Charlie gets everywhere. Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. Either way, this is going to be the most important meeting of your life. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you do, eventually we all have to confront the concept of death. You could be a pragmatist, happy to accept that moving from life to death is merely the transfer of energy from one form to another. You could be deeply devout, believing in an all-encompassing deity who will lead you into a far better afterlife. The choice is ultimately your own. The one thing that makes us all the same, accepting that with life comes death. Claire North’s latest is an exploration of what makes us tick and what happens when the ticking finally stops. Charlie is a truly fascinating character. The Harbinger of Death isn’t the job he ever expected to be doing, but he finds that it fits him well. He gets to travel, meet interesting...