The Good Samaritan
by John Marrs
I’ll start my review of The Good Samaritan with my warning: it has several graphic descriptions of death scenes. Personally, I wasn’t quite comfortable with them, and I did skip a few pages here and there, so if you’re a bit on the squeamish side, this might not be the best book for you. The protagonist volunteers at a suicide help line center, but since she has a fixation about death, she actually tries to talk her callers into killing themselves – rather than being a neutral voice on the “end of the line” (the name of the office). Since the novel takes place in England, the law on this subject is a little different than in America – just keep that in mind.
The part of the book that I really enjoyed was brief but extremely memorable. The woman finds out her teenage daughter has been exchanging nude pictures online with a schoolmate. To punish the instigating boy and end the relationship, the mother hacks into her daughter’s account and steals the boy’s latest nude photo. She emails it to the high school authorities, the boy’s boss, posts it to every one of his Facebook friends, and emails it to the PTA. I understood the author’s intention was to show how unhinged the mother’s character was, but I was proud of her actions. He will never, ever engage in that type of relationship again – and neither will her daughter!
The rest of the book (the vast majority) focuses on the woman’s work at the suicide prevention clinic. Will she continue to help depressed souls kill themselves, or will she eventually get caught and exposed? If you’re interested in this very dark premise, just know what you’re getting into. She has intense mental problems, and there’s a great focus on death and suffering.
The part of the book that I really enjoyed was brief but extremely memorable. The woman finds out her teenage daughter has been exchanging nude pictures online with a schoolmate. To punish the instigating boy and end the relationship, the mother hacks into her daughter’s account and steals the boy’s latest nude photo. She emails it to the high school authorities, the boy’s boss, posts it to every one of his Facebook friends, and emails it to the PTA. I understood the author’s intention was to show how unhinged the mother’s character was, but I was proud of her actions. He will never, ever engage in that type of relationship again – and neither will her daughter!
The rest of the book (the vast majority) focuses on the woman’s work at the suicide prevention clinic. Will she continue to help depressed souls kill themselves, or will she eventually get caught and exposed? If you’re interested in this very dark premise, just know what you’re getting into. She has intense mental problems, and there’s a great focus on death and suffering.