I recently did a poll on Twitter to help me pick my next read and The Good Samaritan was the winner!

Title:The Good Samaritan by John Marrs

Date Published: 1st December 2017

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Description:

She's a friendly voice on the phone. But can you trust her?

The people who call End of the Line need hope. They need reassurance that life is worth living. But some are unlucky enough to get through to Laura. Laura doesn't want them to hope. She wants them to die.

Laura hasn't had it easy: she's survived sickness and a difficult marriage only to find herself heading for forty, unsettled and angry. She doesn't love talking to people worse off than she is. She craves it.

But now someone's on to her—Ryan, whose world falls apart when his pregnant wife ends her life, hand in hand with a stranger. Who was this man, and why did they choose to die together?

The sinister truth is within Ryan's grasp, but he has no idea of the desperate lengths Laura will go to…

Because the best thing about being a Good Samaritan is that you can get away with murder. 

Review:

Another #BeatTheBacklog read down! If I carry on like this, I might actually clear my NetGalley shelf this year! 

Laura works at End of the line, a hotline for troubled souls to vent their sadness. What they don't know is Laura is always looking for the perfect candidate to help them die in the proper way. Hiding behind a perfect housewife persona, nobody would believe her capable. But Ryan is on to her and wants to make her pay.

I've been struggling to put into words how I felt about The Good Samaritan. While I can't say I entirely enjoyed it, I also couldn't put it down either! It had all the things I love in a psychological thriller; flawed characters and twists and turns I didn't see coming, yet it's one of the most disturbing books I've read for a long time. 

To me, Laura was a car crash kind of person. You know you shouldn't look or get involved, but you couldn't help but be drawn to her. She is one of those rare characters where I think she was entirely unlikeable and I don't think she had one redeeming quality. She was so unpredictable, I couldn't help but read on to see what she did next. 

On the other hand, Ryan is one of those characters that you start off feeling for, after what he's been through, but he pushes things too far and becomes unlikeable.

The Good Samaritan is quite a slow burn read. It took until about halfway through to really get going, but when it did; I raced through those pages.

Of course, the whole book deals with suicide and a few other serious issues, like child loss, so if you find those sorts of things upsetting, this may not be the book for you.

If you are looking for a character driven, dark yet compelling thriller, then I would recommend The Good Samaritan to you.

About The Author:

John Marrs is the author of #1 Best Sellers The One, The Good Samaritan, When You Disappeared, Welcome to Wherever You Are, Her Last Move, The Passengers, The Minders and What Lies Between Us.

The One has been translated into 30 different languages and is to be turned into an eight-part Netflix series starting in autumn 2020.

After working as a journalist for 25-years interviewing celebrities from the world of television, film and music for national newspapers and magazines, he is now a full-time writer.

Follow him on Twitter @johnmarrs1

Facebook: @johnmarrsauthor

Instagram: @johnmarrs.author