Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

I have just finished this book and wow... it starts off slow but then ramps up and continues in that trend!

I found myself really truly hating a main character for the first time and that made it difficult to read at first but I’m glad I continued on.

Laura and Ryan play a deadly cat and mouse game throughout and the twists and turns it takes come out of left field mostly from nowhere.

If you want to read a book that surprises and slightly disturbs you at every page then this is the book for you.

The only thing I would say is I would have liked a couple of extra chapters to see it really play out.

Author John Marrs tied my stomach into knots with a sordid tale of deception from those we instill a great deal of trust. The storyline had several well-placed characters but trickled down for the most part to two. They were well-drawn. The heading of the chapters were a time-saver by identifying which character was speaking. No time was lost trying to figure it out. Needless fillers or slow moving scenes never entered the narrative. As the plot progressed so did the action and intensity.

End of the Line is a suicide help center that offers their services for free to those in need of a helping hand. A friendly voice. Someone who will not place judgement. The trained volunteers are there to listen, not try to convince distraught people to go in a specific direction. Though certainly never persuade anyone to follow through with suicide. But as frequently happens, this barrel had its proverbial rotten apple.

Laura Morris paraded herself before family, friends and colleagues as the perfect mother, wife and volunteer worker. If only that were true. The only thing she thrived on was manipulating people at their worst of times - when they were at their most vulnerable. I quickly developed an immediate dislike for her. It's soon turned to loathing.

In reality she was estranged from her family and not very well liked by her fellow volunteers. Friends, she had none. Her entire life was a sham. She thought that if she told herself and others outright lies enough times, eventually it would become the truth. All that mattered was that she believed it. Eventually everyone else would too. Anything and everything she did was for her benefit only. And only her.

She rated her success as a volunteer by the number of suicides she had driven some of her callers into. She even attended all the funerals and kept a collection of the services announcements. This gave her great joy. The callers that were not serious about suicide showed no promise to her.

She was conniving, devious and planned everything out. Laura had not gotten this far by being careless. She wasn't about to start now. Little did she know that she had put herself in the crosshairs of a caller intent with revenge. Now the predator had become the hunted. It finished with an ending that left me thirsting for more.

My thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing (UK) for this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I love the previous books by this author so was excited to discover a new release.

This one caught me by surprise as it was a bit of a slow burner for me. The beginning mostly focuses on the main character who is not the most likeable of people.

I swithered whether to continue with the book but given my enjoyment of John Marrs other books I decided to stick it out.

I’m glad I chose to continue as the end made things more clearer and gave me an insight into why the main character turned out as she did.

Looking forward to reading the next offering from John Marrs.

Laura is bat guano crazy...just reading her thoughts made my skin crawl. Stopped reading the book because being in her head was just too disturbing.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

Just finished reading this after cursing it took me 3 days because of work commitments and sleeping. Wow what a read. John Marrs never disappoints, we know early on what Laura, a married mother of two living a charmed life in a beautiful all house is really capable of. Or do we? Is Laura really trying to help suicidal people or is she a monster.? Is she a terrible victim in life? Does this explain what she does? This book is a must read until the very last page.

Thank you to Netgalley, John Marrs and Amazon Publishing for my ARC of The Good Samaritan. 



Summary


Laura works for a charity called End of the Line it's there to help people who feel suicidal by being a friendly voice on the end of the phone, without judgement. They don't try to talk you out of it, they're just there to lend an ear and support. Except Laura does talk, she talks you into it rather than out of it.


Review


To the outside world, Laura has it all. A picture perfect life with her still-hot-husband, perfect children, and easy life working for the charity. She's the sort who bakes for her colleagues and fixes their clothing repairs, she monitors her daughters online interactions and she raises funds for the charity constantly. She is the perfect Good Samaritan. She's even survived cancer.


Except Laura has a secret, she likes to listen to people die. Likes to hear them take their last breathe and her job gives her the perfect outlet to do just that. But everything begins to spiral out of control when the husband of one of the women Laura encourages to die, begins to look into his wife's suicide and as he gets closer to the truth, more of Laura's lies and secrets are exposed.


This book was so fast paced I couldn't stop reading it. Laura is a fascinating if hateful character and her personality was explored in a thoroughly satisfying way.

there were some really 'oh my god' moments and I felt myself racing through it to find out what would happen next.

There aren't enough stars to rate this book. It was an amazing read from start to finish. The beginning led me to believe I had Laura's story and background figured out only to be turned around into a nightmare. The plot was engaging as were the characters. I loved getting to read the story as it was happening, from two different perspectives. This is a page turner and sure to keep you up all night reading. I highly recommend it!

Laura works for End of the Line, a helpline for those experiencing emotional distress--a place for them to be heard. But when Laura speaks to clients, her intentions, no matter how justified she believes them to be, are quite sinister. She has successfully assisted many individuals, via phone, in ending their own lives.

But when Laura's path crosses with that of Ryan, things start to get a little rocky for her. Because you see, Ryan thought he had everything in life ahead of him... he and his wife, Charlotte, were expecting their first child to arrive within a few months and he had a big surprise in store for Charlotte. When Charlotte makes a decision that ultimately ends not only her own life, but that of Ryan's unborn child, Ryan refuses to accept reality and is filled with unrelenting anger. So when he discovers that his wife has been calling End of the Line for months leading up to her death and starts to do his own digging, his actions threatens to unravel the threads of Laura's secret hidden agenda.

Unfortunately.. Ryan has no idea just how far Laura will go to keep her secret contained.

★  ☆  ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆ ★  ☆

The One was a recent read for me, but is undoubtedly one of my all time favorite novels. So I had the bar set pretty high for John Marrs' novels. The Good Samaritan lived up to every one of my expectations, and more. Although the content and style of this novel is far different from that of The One, you can still hear John's voice and his style of writing is so skillful. He has a way of crafting characters that are so dark and complex--Characters that can be both highly unlikable but highly relatable at the same time.

There are a few things you can expect from this novel:
★  A unique and dark twist on a touchy subject that far too many people can relate to, unfortunately. This author can take something as simple as an emotional support hotline or an online dating service and flip it on its head, creating an entirely new twisted and enticing concept.
★  All the tough feelings. Seriously.. expect to feel all of them. I felt strong anger, frustration, deep sadness, sympathy, and disgust. This novel hit me where it hurt and didn't stop until the very end and I loved every minute of the pain!
★  A humanized antagonist. Laura's character is a character that you will love to hate... the ultimate psychopathic villain. But she will also break your heart. Her story is one of those that is polished and simplistic on the surface level, but dark and ugly beneath the surface. Expect to watch as she is deconstructed into the fragments that have built her into the now sinister and complicated individual that she is.



The only 'downside' that I can see some people not caring for.. is the 'slowish' pace of the first of the three parts of the novel. This is due to the fact that you get the exact same timeline shown from the perspective of Laura and then from Ryan. I promise you, this is not without artful planning and skillful writing. The juxtaposition that you will soon discover between Laura's point of view and that of others around her is so important to her story. John knows what he is doing with her character arc... let it unfold, give it time.

All in all.. this is another of Marrs' novels that you do not want to miss out on. Give into that FOMO and pick this one up. You will not be disappointed. After completing this read, I preordered a hard copy and then purchased another of his previous novels. This will be a novel I recommend (just as I have with The One) to everyone around me!



Thank you to John Marrs and Thomas & Mercer of Amazon Publishing for providing me with a DRC of this title in exchange for an honest review!

End of the Line is a suicide hotline, staffed with volunteers who are trained to stop people from taking their own lives. Well, that’s what the volunteers are supposed to do, but Laura is there to talk to those poor desperate souls for another reason. She enjoys listening to other people’s pain, it makes her feel better about her own imperfect life. But when a caller to the help line goes ahead with her plan to commit suicide, her husband, Ryan comes looking for answers. A sly and gritty novel about a truly wicked woman

This book is amazing. I’ve loved all of John Marrs’ books, and this one is no exception. So thrilling,

I want to thank Netgalley, John Marrs and Amazon Publishing for allowing me to read this great psychological novel. It has all the markings of a great psychological and intense book.



You have Laura who is to be at first believed as a nice, warm, sympathetic and kind woman at the end of a phone to people who've got problems. You have Ryan who is a loving, kind man who's whole world has come crashing down when his pregnant wife commits suicide. What have these two people have in common - Laura was the last person Ryan's wife spoke to. OR was she? Why is Ryan chasing after Laura? What is Laura hiding from people? Can a good samaritan really hold a life in their hands and snuff it out or is it all make believe?



You need to read this riveting book that has had my emotions all over the place. I have hated, loathed, detested Laura through this book. I have cried over characters and the way they seem to think there is no way out of the life they lead. I have cheered for characters as they turn corners from their struggles. But OMG have I immersed myself as I've read what these characters have gone through in their lives (Laura included). Can a Good Samaritan ever be DERANGED or are they like the rest of us - just NORMAL people. Find out in this The Good Samaritan novel by the excellent John Marrs.

Where do I being , I was drawn in from the start. I swung from feeling empathy to disbelief as to lengths each character would go to, to achieve their end result. It was a game of cat & mouse just when I thought I knew where I was being taken , then wham another twist & turn took me off in another direction.
This book is cleverly written to lead you down one path to then throw a curve ball in. I felt I was in the mind of the characters & could relate to the way they reacted given the circumstances. There are times in books I think " As if you'd do that " but I found the characters developed so as I could see why they had done " that" . Each clever twist & turn is intricately woven in to the plot so that when it explodes I though of course.
I must admit John Marrs even had me feeling sorry for Laura at one point.