The Death Cure

The Death Cure is a young adult dystopian novel by the American writer James Dashner, published on 11 October 2011 by Delacorte Press. It is the third published book in The Maze Runner series and the fifth and last in the order the story runs.

The novel begins where the previous volume ends, with the surviving characters offered a deal: the organisation says it has gathered what it needs from the trials and now wants their help, with their memories returned, in finding a cure for the disease that has killed most of the population. Thomas's difficulty is that the same organisation has lied to him before and still controls the treatment and the information, and the reader is asked to decide how much of what the characters are told should be believed.

Dashner writes short chapters and a fast plot, and this volume reconnects the characters with the world outside the tests. It closes the series' central question about how far a cure can be pursued at other people's expense, completing the arc the first book opened.