for inscrutable reasons the author has chosen to let death speak first to the humans, who then answer him, but the pictures still show death on the right page (looking left) and the humans on the left page (looking right), so the reader has to read death's request on the right page first and then the dying person's reply on the left page.

This is all lower case. Can you fix that?
For inscrutable reasons the author has chosen to let Death speak first to the humans, who then answer him, but the pictures still show Death on the right page (looking left) and the humans on the left page (looking right), so the reader has to read Death's request on the right page first and then the dying person's reply on the left page.