The People Watcher by Sam Lloyd #ThePeopleWatcher @TransworldBooks @samlloydwrites #bookreview

The People Watcher by Sam Lloyd

Publication Date: 8th June 2023 (Hardback), 18th January 2024 (paperback)

Published by Penguin

She watches them in the dead of night. Hidden in plain sight, Mercy Lake provides what people need. Quietly. In secret. Making lives better.

But he is watching too. And he doesn’t want to help anyone - he wants to punish them. And he wants Mercy to join him.

Soon, though, their activities draw the attention of the very person Mercy is desperate to avoid. Someone who will go to extreme lengths to make her pay for knowing their secret . . .

My Thoughts:

This is my first read of this author's work, and was chosen for me by my lovely "virtual" friend Alfred on one of the Psychological Thriller book groups on Facebook. I'd fallen into a bit of a slump after being ill and wasn't sure what I wanted to read next. Alfred very kindly offered to choose for me from a selection taken from my TBR mountain, and this was his suggestion.

I wasn't sure at first as this book is a very slow burner for the first 100 or so pages, so if you want action from the get-go then this won't be one for you. But Mercy Lake's character got under my skin and I wanted to know more about what made her into the young woman we meet in the early part of the book. Mercy watches people in her local community. Not by day, in coffee shops or restaurants or other public places. No. Mercy cannot tolerate daylight, and takes herself out on her own in the hours of darkness in order to watch people in their own homes. This may sound strange, but something happened to Mercy - something bad. Something she hides from everyone. And whatever it is has left her with medical conditions which make her very different from the rest of us average Joes. While all this is very odd, we soon learn that Mercy isn't a bad person; she's on the lookout for people she can help. People who, whatever their reasons are, need something nice in their lives. They may not even realise that they need these little random acts of kindness. But Mercy hopes the things she does raises a smile from them, or makes life just a little easier. 

Then one night she meets Louis. On the forecourt of the local Texaco petrol station where she's being picked on by some youngsters who have noticed that she's a bit different to everyone else. Louis arrives to fill his camper van up with fuel, and kindly steps in to support her. It doesn't take long before Mercy and Louis become close friends, and she lets him closer to her than anyone else has been in years. But despite the superficial niceties, is Louis really good for Mercy? He joins in with her little kind gestures, helping local people and not really questioning her quirkiness but it's not long before he begins to bring his own personality to the party. Is he in this to help, or does he want to exact vengeance on certain individuals? He has Mercy questioning her methodology: do you help the victims, or do you help prevent their suffering from going any further? It's a new way of looking at things for Mercy, and she's not sure how she feels about it.

The last third of this book takes a very different turn, and despite the start being snail-paced, the ending certainly can't be described that way. The pages turned at an ever-increasing rate for me as the author fed in more and more action and revelations that threw me SO many curveballs that came out of nowhere. I wanted to know what was going on, but really didn't want the book to finish. There are layers to this story, and it totally made sense as to why the book began the way it did, building and building until the hard-hitting explanations at the end. 

My advice: please stick with the slow motion start, it's definitely worth the ride!

Thank you again Alfred, an excellent choice.

About The Author:

Sam Lloyd grew up in Hampshire, where he learned his love of storytelling. These days he lives in Surrey with his wife, three young sons and a dog that likes to howl. His first thrillers, The Memory Wood and The Rising Tide, were published to huge critical acclaim in 2020 and 2021.