4.5/5 stars

Holy cow! This book! When I started it, I honestly didn't remember what the description had said. I knew it was something to do with a phone hot line, and that was about it. So basically, I went into it totally blind...and then that prologue. It definitely had me eager to read more. I read the book in two large gulps, in less than 24 hours, because I HAD TO KNOW what happened. I make no apologies for it either. Zero shame.

The half point was taken off because I was confused throughout about David and Ollie, and the reveal about them could have been done in clearer tones. Other than that it was perfect. The epilogue made me wish for a continuation, but really - what did you expect, with that family? All in all, a book well done. It was my first by John Marrs, but DEFINITELY not my last.

I absolutely loved this book, from the first page it was thrilling, I had to read it in one sitting and stay up the majority of the night just to finish this. When you manage to get your head around the book there is a twist which throws you off guard. This plot was original which attracted me to this in the first placed and it definitely did not disappoint.

I haven't been big on thrillers in the past but given that I enjoyed a couple earlier in the year I thought I'd check out some more. Am I ever glad I did. The Good Samaritan takes a scenario that exceeds the readers' wildest imaginations and crafts it into the most memorable book of 2018 for me so far. I know we are only in March but it's going to be tough to outdo this novel. It's truly hard to review this one as I'm still not certain how I feel about the main two characters, each on a destructive path that pulls innocent bystanders into their calculated chaos. It's a novel packed with so many twists and turns that leave you reeling and in my case, unable to resist an audible gasp at key moments and shocking/surprising reveals. I can't praise this book enough.

I have read and loved all of John Marrs books but unfortunately this one didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

Absolutely amazing book!!very original subject matter.will definitely be checking out the authors back catalogue☺

Wow! just finished this story and I can say it kept me on my toes with twists and turns in the plot. John Marrs' ability to develop his characters and the plot is amazing. This chilling story about Laura's mental health and how those tentacles reached out to touch various people's lives was a nail biter. The story seems to end in a cliffhanger. Does Effie save her family from the danger her mother represents without putting herself in danger? Is there a book two in the works? :)

As usual John Marrs does not disappoint - gripped from the first page this book keeps the reader guessing until the very end . Twists and turns throughout this is cleverly written with believable characters - read it now you won't be able to put this book down !!!

I seem to have developed an addiction for novels by John Marrs.
Having read the first three and bugged anyone who was interested to read them, I had high expectations for this one too.
I've got to be honest. The first quarter had me worried. Mainly because, having read the reviews, I was expecting a loathsome main character and I actually found myself understanding if not empathising with her which had me really concerned about myself!
Once you get past the 25% mark though....wow. Just wow.
The novel turns into a cat and mouse, new ride at Alton Towers type, stomach churning roller coaster ride that leaves you breathless. Right up until the final twist.
Full respect to the author who can take such diverse settings and plot lines and deliver every single time.
My biggest frustration with Mr Marrs is that he can't write quickly enough to fill each gap after his last novel.
No housework done all weekend again.
Superb.

I'm in two minds about this book to be honest. It was a horrible book to read, and by horrible I mean creepy and nasty and the characters were so distasteful that I actually felt uncomfortable during the majority of my reading experience. Despite that, it was still cruising for a whopping five shiny stars, that is until towards the end when, for me, it degenerated a wee bit, and lost a star as it stopped skirting along the line and did cross over into the realm of the incredible as it became, to me, a bit of a farce. There was just too much at the end escalation-wise and that just lost me a little bit. The absolute ending, when it came, resurrected it however and managed to save it for me.
Wife and mother of two, Laura fills her time volunteering at End of the Line, a suicide helpline. Their ethos is not as you'd expect. Instead of trying to talk people out of whatever they are planning, they respect the choices they want and just try and make whatever they decide to do a little easier. But Laura has an ulterior motive in return for her time. Every time she answers the phone, she is hoping for the one individual who is determined to end it all. Even if they don't quite know it yet. all she needs is a sign, an inkling, and then she helps them in her own special way.
The first part of the book sets the scene for Laura. We hear of her past escapades, her family life and a small amount of personal background. We see how she interacts with her co-workers and are privy to some of her secrets. We also learn about people she has helped in the past and how she is delighted when she answers the phone to a new client.
Then we hear from Ryan, he has a very different story to tell. But I can't say much about that here. Suffice to say, he is a very wounded character and his part is all about trying to make sense of something he has very little understanding of.
Ryan and Laura's stories then start to merge and more of the other characters get dragged into the mire and the rest of the book is what happens when their worlds collide, culminating in what to me was a very interesting but, on reflection, satisfying ending.
Without trying to give anything away, there was a lot of repetition in this book. Scenes played out twice from the POV of different characters with only a small amount of difference. Personally, I am really not a fan of this way of storytelling even when, like in this book, it is done well. I find myself scanning rather than reading and have to concentrate too hard to rein myself in which doesn't make for a good all round experience for me. I understand why this had to happen in this book, given the nature of the characters and the plot but, it's just not my favourite thing and it did irk me a tad. Not enough to mark the book down, I've already said why I did that.
One of the things I really love in a good nasty, dark psychological thriller is credibility. To chill and scare me, it has to be realistic and, for the majority of this book, it was. But, as the two main characters started to escalate, that line was crossed for me and, instead of shivering with trepidation at what I was reading, I did start to roll my eyes as it just went a little OTT and that kind of undid all the really great work that the author had done thus far. It was also, for me, a bit unbalanced. Again, probably just my own personal preference but with books of this nature, with such horrible characters, I do like a bit of respite along the way. I don't remember getting (m)any of those lighter moments in this book. Maybe if I had, the parts I thought OTT wouldn't have stuck out so much for me.
That said, the author did redeem himself at the end. I was wondering how he would manage to wrap it all up. Even before it all fell apart, I had no idea where we would eventually end up but, when we got there, I did sit back nodding and thought it was a job well done.
All in all, a mostly good read which did leave me satisfied at the end but which did lose me along the way a tad. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

What a great book! I was hooked from the first chapter and loved all the twists and turns!!
Hope the way it ended on a massive cliffhanger that there’s going to be a follow up!!

A seemingly caring mother of three volunteers at a charity helpline for people who are at the end of their tethers, and often suicidal, but her intentions are an extremely twisted, sinister definition of 'helpful'. I can honestly say that Laura is one of the most evil and utterly loathsome characters I have ever read. A disturbingly brutal, chilling and addictive read.

What a book! If evil had a human form, it would be Laura in The Good Samaritan. To her co-workers at the suicide helpline, she is the devoted housewife who bakes cupcakes and organizes fundraisers. To the callers, she is the Freer of Lost Souls who has made it her mission to nudge people over the edge and claim their last breaths for herself. When Ryan’s pregnant wife becomes one of Laura’s victims, it sets off a cat-and-mouse game with no rules, no limits. This is a book I would be thinking about for a long time to come. Creepy, dark, and disturbing.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the book.

I absolutely adored "The One" by John, so I was eager to read this. And boy did it not disappoint. This was thrilling from the first page, it hooked me in instantly. The character of Laura infuriated me, and overall I adored this book. The best I've read in 2018!

Disclaimer: I received a free eARC of this via NetGalley in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.

One-Line Summary:

A slow-burn thriller told from the point of view of a mentally ill woman playing a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Summary:

When Laura started volunteering at End of the Line, she didn’t exactly have helping those in need on her mind. What she intended to do, instead, was assist those looking to die by helping them commit a pain-free and successful suicide. She doesn’t even bat an eyelash at encouraging a pregnant young wife to be part of a double-suicide with a man that’s important to Laura who doesn’t want to die alone. Problem is, that wife had a husband, and he refuses to believe his wife just up and committed suicide.

Ryan devotes what’s left of his crumbling life, having lost his wife and son, to finding out what happened. He stumbles on End of the Line and realizes what Laura has been doing. While looking for proof to bring her to justice, what he finds instead is a cat-and-mouse game of wits with stakes so high they could mean life or death.

The Positives:

- The main character, Laura, is obsessed with listening to people’s dying breath, and I find that FASCINATING. In a creepy and morbid way, but I thought it was a bit of a unique angle for a main character. Her reasoning for it made sense. The first time she heard someone die, it was her mother passing from cancer, and it was the two of them alone in a room. The thought of that sound, as their little secret almost, gave her something of her mother to cling to and remind her. It’s morbid, but it’s an interesting bit of character building. Laura actually believes that when she’s allowed to hear someone’s last breath, she’s carrying them forward. They’re freed from their pain and suffering, and she carries them inside her.

- Laura clearly has mental issues, and I sort of love it? Mental issues are really tricky in any sort of book. It starts out looking like she’s a psychopath, and she may well be, but she has so many more issues than that, and it slowly becomes more obvious as the story goes along. It gets to a point where I had to question everything I’d already read up until that point and things started making more sense as it went along.

- Once things really started picking up, the plot was actually fascinating. I really wanted to know what was going to happen next, and it kept me turning pages. The stakes kept being upped, and the situation was more dangerous and entangled, which made it all the more interesting to read.

The Negatives:

- There’s a lot of info-dumping, which seems to just drag on. In fact, the way we learn about Laura and her story is through a tour of her house (which she hates), introducing us to the other characters as she snooped on them, and then ended in a mirror scene to describe what she looks like, of course. I hate mirror scenes with a passion. The whole thing is passive and not very entertaining, in my opinion, to just read about how little she likes her life. The character herself I find fascinating, which is maybe why this is particularly a let-down.

- Most of the story is told through exposition and inner thoughts. Which might not bother some, but for me, I find it rather boring. There’s very little action. Everything happens off-screen, and then Laura tells us what happened after the fact. Most of it is just her thoughts, with some brief dialogue with some other people. It wasn’t particularly engaging to me, and since she’s not meant to be a likeable character, that sometimes made reading it challenging.

- It didn’t feel much like a psychological thriller until about 60% of the way in, when it really picked up the pace. I’m not saying it has to move at breakneck speed, but this book really felt like it crawled along for a while. There were plenty of times I thought about just setting it aside, and I even considered adding it to the DNF list because it took so long to build up to anything.

- There are so many times in this book that I was pulled out because I’m pretty sure that’s not how things work. Now, I’m not an expert, and I’m not about to do the research into British law, but if you volunteer at a suicide hotline, are you not required to inform the authorities when someone actually commits suicide on the phone with you? In any case, calls should be recorded, as far as I know, and would it not be standard procedure to look up calls made by someone who has committed suicide while on the phone with a suicide hotline or shortly after? All these things really jumped out at me, and I don’t know whether it’s done or not because I’m too lazy to research it, but it seemed unrealistic that there would be 24 people in a relatively short time span that were discovered had called the hotline right before committing suicide and the police do basically nothing. I won’t say too much because spoilers, but I also refuse to believe that Laura managed to have a perfectly healthy, normal persona and raise no red flags for anyone until this. Or that she would be allowed to work at End of the Line, given her history, and surely they would have had to do background checks.

- There’s a horrible case of convenience going on here. Things don’t happen because they’re well calculated, carefully planned, and meticulously thought out. It’s all horrible coincidence. People are in the right place at the right time and make the wrong moves in just the perfect way to incriminate themselves. Also, anyone can quite easily, and without any skill, find out anyone else’s password at the exact moment they need to do something that will get that person in trouble. I can forgive a lucky coincidence or two, but it became too much for me, to the point where every time it happened I actually rolled my eyes.

- Tony’s character is the absolute worst, and in a book full of people with questionable morals and a psychopath, that’s not a compliment. His character makes no sense at all to me, and I don’t understand any of his motives or decisions. Not a single one of them. Especially at the end. UGH, I WAS SO MAD. I won’t post anything because spoilers, but I actually like his character less than Laura, and he’s supposed to be “normal” and she’s supposed to be hated. So there’s that.

Overall:

This was an okay book. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible. Overall, the thing that really knocked it down for me, aside from the slow start, were the amount of things that I just couldn’t believe. There were too many of them that by the end, I just wasn’t buying most of the story, and there’s little that irks me more than a psychological thriller that I can’t believe could actually happen. That’s part of the scariness of a psychological thriller, isn’t it, is the fact that people are horrible and this might actually happen? That was unfortunately lacking here for me. I did like the unique perspective and the terrifying take of a less-than-good Samaritan.

Laura works as a volunteer for the charity ‘End of the Line’. She answers calls from suicidal people, giving them somebody to talk to whilst not judging them. At least, that’s what she is supposed to do, but Laura totally abuses her position and gets some weird sense of enjoyment from her hidden agenda. Ryan, the Husband of one of Laura’s callers decides to investigate his Wife’s demise. From there on in the plot unfolds with many twists and turns and an ending which disappointed me a little.
Having enjoyed ‘The One’, I was looking forward to reading this book. The Good Samaritan has a unique plot and is based around a difficult subject. However, I didn’t find this book very gripping and there was a lack of tension, which didn’t encourage me to continue reading. In general, a very uncomfortable read.

John Marrs has an amazing gift for creating complex characters. Laura might not be the perfect candidate for a volunteer position manning a suicide helpline. She is full of anger and resentment and enjoys people’s suffering. The perfect caller will be one she can ‘help’ end their life. She presents one normal, charming face to the world and yet clearly we see the psychopath lurking under her façade. There were enough twists and turns to keep me engrossed and wanting desperately to know what would happen next. Laura was a disturbing character and this story kept me speculating how this would end until the very last page. It is a dark thriller and if that appeals to you, you are in for one pulse-pounding ride. Kudos to John Marrs for a book that was impossible to put down.
John Marrs, Amazon Publishing UK, and NetGalley provided a digital copy and I want to say thank you for the opportunity to read The Good Samaritan.

I read the other John Maars' book - The One - and thought it'd been the best book I'd read in the last year. And now THIS! I literally couldnt stop reading! Full of action, full of twists - logically, smartly created plot! No nonsense, no blah-blah - pure psychological thriller! The only thing I didn't like was the moment I have read the book and there was nothing left :))
(Thank you Netgalley for sharing this great book with me)

Ooh I didn't really like this one. Too freaky for me and the switching POV confused me. It's a great premise though as you never suspect a Samaritan type phone person to be anything other than good. It just made me feel uncomfortable and not in a good way. Sorry!

Ive only recently discovered this author and wow he can write! Absolutely loved this book.

This was a fantastic read, I finished it all in one go.

The story starts with one of the creepiest things I have ever read. The book is very easy to read with short chapters.
We start the book with Laura, who works as a volunteer for End of the Line, a phone line people can call when they experience emotional problems or suicidal thoughts. She is a very complex character and not a very nice person we soon discover!

The other narrator is Ryan, who lost his wife to suicide. These two narrators soon find their lives intertwined and then it really picks up the pace.
While reading it, I told my partner several times: This is so great, I cannot wait to find out more. I loved every minute of this book and highly recommend it.

The twists are so cleverly done, you will keep wanting more!