Good Samaritans
By Will Carver
4.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Shortlisted for Best Independent Voice at the Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards
Longlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize
THRILLER OF THE YEAR in GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH AND DAILY EXPRESS
‘Totally addictive. Like Fight Club, only darker’ S.J. Watson
‘I loved this book. Dark and at times almost comical, a great blend of crime thriller and the darkest imaginable domestic noir’ Sarah Pinborough
Dark, deviant and disturbing domestic noir … one of the most entrancing, sophisticated and page-turning psychological thrillers of the year…
One crossed wire, three dead bodies and six bottles of bleach…
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…
Dark, sexy, dangerous and wildly readable, Good Samaritans marks the scorching return of one of crime fiction’s most exceptional voices.
‘So dark, so cool’ Lisa Howells, Heat Magazine
‘Will Carver’s invigoratingly nasty novel … is a bleak vision of life: not the whole truth of it, thank god, but true enough to impart to the reader the thrill of genuine discomfort, presented with the chilly conviction of Simenon’s most unflinching romans dues and just as horribly addictive’ Jake Kerridge, The Telegraph
‘Carver weaves these strands together for an unsettling but compelling mixture of the banal, the horrific and, at times, the near-comic, wrong-footing the reader at every turn’ Laura Wilson, Guardian
‘In this frantic read in sheer overdrive, Carver appeals to the worst voyeur in all of us and delivers the goods with a punch and a fiendish sense of pace and dark humour … my type of noir’ Maxim Jakubowski, Crime Time
‘Must Read!’ Daily Express
‘Beautiful, gripping and disturbing in equal measure, a postcard from the razor’s edge of the connected world we live in’ Kevin Wignall
‘Possibly the most interesting and original writer in the crime-fiction genre, and I've loved his books for years. Good Samaritans
is his best to date – dark, slick, gripping, and impossible to put down. You'll be sucked in from the first page’ Luca Veste
‘Oh My God, Good Samaritans is amazing. I’m a little in love with your writing Will Carver’ Helen FitzGerald, Author of The Cry
‘Sick … in the best possible way. Will Carver delivers a delicious slice of noir that will have you reeling’ Michael J. Malone
‘If you’re looking for a genuinely creepy thriller, checkout Good Samaritans… completely enthralled’ Margaret B Madden
‘Dark, edgy, disturbing, shocking and sexy. It’s also highly original and one of the best thrillers of the year … You need to read this book’ Michael Wood
’A twisted, devious thriller’ Nick Quantrill
'A dark and addictive novel that felt deliciously sexy to read, like I should read it where no one could see’ Louise Beech
‘A pitch dark, highly original, thrilling novel. If you’re a fan of Fight Club, you’ll love this’ Tom Wood
‘A provocative, heady, unique, challenging read and it is absolutely blimmin wonderful!’ LoveReading
Will Carver
Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series and the critically acclaimed, mind-blowingly original Detective Pace series that includes Good Samaritans (2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (2019) and Hinton Hollow Death Trip (2020), all of which were ebook bestsellers and selected as books of the year in the mainstream international press. Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for both the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2020 and the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize, and was followed by four standalone literary thrillers, The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous, The Daves Next Door and Suicide Thursday. Will spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his children.
Read more from Will Carver
Hinton Hollow Death Trip Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Samaritans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing Important Happened Today Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Beresford Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Daves Next Door Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Psychopaths Anonymous: The CULT BESTSELLER of 2021 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Suicide Thursday Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUpstairs at the Beresford Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Reviews for Good Samaritans
2 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Samaritans – Are they really?Never judge a book by its cover they say, never judge it by its title either. This is not a jaunty ride with bags of frivolity, this is dark and twisted, just how I like it. Will Carver, famous for his January David series, has come up with a book that will be a classic. There is the traditional noir and then there is The Good Samaritans, dark, twisted, and completely engrossing. When you think you have cracked the story you are sadly mistaken, as there are more twists than on a corkscrew. Seth Beauman cannot sleep, an insomniac who stays up late, well he can do little else. While in those dark hours he likes to call strangers from his phonebook, just to talk, and if he makes a connection with someone, even better. While he does this, his wife Maeve is upstairs in bed sleeping like a baby. One night a crossed wire and he is talking to a suicidal Hadley Serf.They talk regularly and build up enough confidence so that they meet in day time and it eventually turns into something more. A somewhat dysfunctional love trysts take a darker turn, even more so when he takes Hadley to his home. What Seth does not realise is that his relationship is being watched from afar.Meanwhile Maeve loves watching the news, and is following the case of Detective Sergeant Pace, who is on the hunt for a murderer. Someone is killing women and bathing them in bleach, then wrapping them in plastic wrap before dumping them somewhere in Warwickshire.This is a brilliant noir thriller with some wonderful twists and turns that will leave you gasping. There is a wonderfully dark heart at the centre of this thriller and it will keep you entertained from beginning to the end.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'd heard so much about Good Samaritans before I started reading it, all of it good. I was expecting unusual and a bit quirky and that's exactly what I got.There are five major characters in this book, anyone else is simply a bit part. Seth is a chronic insomniac, who whiles away the night ringing strangers, asking them if they want to talk. Inevitably most don't, but occasionally he gets lucky. Maeve, his wife, puts up with his late night dalliances, but there's so much more to Maeve than initially meets the eye. Then there's Hadley, a young and suicidal woman, who rings the Samaritans but somehow gets Seth. And Ant works for The Samaritans and inadvertently ends up speaking to Hadley. See how twisty this is already getting and this is the tip of the iceberg.Character number five is a policeman investigating the three dead bodies. How they are all linked is clever and cunning, twisty yet never confusing.There's a lot of dry humour in Good Samaritans. Many times I found I was smiling to myself. Most of this humour came from Seth who is an incredibly well-drawn character. The descriptions of his insomnia and the way it made him feel and behave were so vivid.The first half of the book concentrates on Seth, Hadley and Ant until wham bam, something sort of unexpected happens. I say sort of because I was expecting it but not exactly how it happened. Surprise number 1. In the second half, the action shifts around and the focus on the characters changes around. As I headed towards the end, again, part of what happens was exactly what I was expecting, but then that curveball was thrown at me again and I had surprise number 2. Will Carver certainly plotted this novel carefully to ensure shock value.I found Good Samaritans to be a perfectly dark story, naughty, different, surprising and edgy. I can't fail to mention the large amount of detailed sexual activity but it fits well with the characters and the story structure. All I can say is be very careful who you chat to on the phone and keep an eye on anybody buying bleach in the supermarket or petrol station. You never know what's happening behind closed doors!