Good Samaritans – Will Carver

Published by Orenda Books, November 2018
Source: review copy
Seth Beauman can’t sleep. He stays up late, calling strangers from his phonebook, hoping to make a connection, while his wife, Maeve, sleeps upstairs. A crossed wire finds a suicidal Hadley Serf on the phone to Seth, thinking she is talking to The Samaritans.
But a seemingly harmless, late-night hobby turns into something more for Seth and for Hadley, and soon their late-night talks are turning into day-time meet-ups. And then this dysfunctional love story turns into something altogether darker, when Seth brings Hadley home…
And someone is watching…

I’ve sat and looked a blank page for the past half hour, trying to come up with some kind of coherent thoughts about Will Carver’s Good Samaritans. I’ve read a lot of Orenda Books’ output over the past couple of years, and I’ll say this – you’ll always get something different, something unique, something unlike you’ve come across before.

And that’s definitely the case with Good Samaritans. It’s very dark, very graphic and gripping, and demands that you read just one more chapter.

After all, the chapters are short, so one more can’t hurt, can it?

Narrator: Oh yes it can. They can hurt a lot.

Told from multiple viewpoints, Good Samaritans is a story of crossed lines and crossed fates. After a brutal opening, I found it took a little while to settle into the style of the book, flicking as it does from Seth to Maeve to Hadley, from present to flashback, from first to third person. But once you’ve adjusted, you’re in for quite a ride. There were several points at which I was convinced that I’d figured it out, only for something to come out of left-field and blindside me. One in particular (and I’m not giving anything else away) had me put the book down and glare at it (in a good way!) for a minute or two before diving back in.

The plotting is devilishly clever, and Carver does a splendid job of getting into the heads of some spectacularly unsavoury people. Good Samaritans is definitely *not* for the squeamish, featuring some very graphic (and energetic) sex, and some very unpleasant things done with bleach.

If I had any quibble I’d loved to have seen more of Detective Pace, who feels a little like background texture. Maybe he could have more adventures… Will?

Good Samaritans is a phenomenal read. I finished it the day it arrived, hooked from the first page.

Good Samaritans by Will Carver is published by Orenda Books. Thanks to Karen for the review copy. You can find Will on Twitter @will_carver.