Published by Thomas & Mercer
Publication Date: 12th April 2018 paperback
Book Description:
She’s a friendly voice on the phone. But can you trust her?
The people who call End of the Line need hope. They need reassurance that life is worth living. But some are unlucky enough to get through to Laura. Laura doesn’t want them to hope. She wants them to die.
Laura hasn’t had it easy: she’s survived sickness and a difficult marriage only to find herself heading for forty, unsettled and angry. She doesn’t love talking to people worse off than she is. She craves it.
But now someone’s on to her―Ryan, whose world falls apart when his pregnant wife ends her life, hand in hand with a stranger. Who was this man, and why did they choose to die together?
The sinister truth is within Ryan’s grasp, but he has no idea of the desperate lengths Laura will go to…
Because the best thing about being a Good Samaritan is that you can get away with murder.
My Thoughts:
What a troubled soul our Laura is! But the reader won't comprehend quite how troubled until the final pages are read and the book is closed.
The End of the Line is a charity, similar to the Samaritans, for people who are struggling with all kinds of issues who just need someone to listen. Laura volunteers for the charity and on face value is a kind, caring and generous person. She bakes cakes for the other volunteers, mends and alters clothing for them and is generally a lovely person. Except she's not. She buys the cakes and decants them into her own cake tins, farms the clothes out to local seamstresses to be fixed, and that's just the very tip of the Laura iceberg. There is nothing good about Laura - but in her own mind, she can justify every single one of her actions. That is until she realises she's been rumbled. Who is it who's on to her, and how far are they prepared to go to uncover her misdeeds?
There are so many nasty layers to this woman, and John Marrs has penned a novel which will shock, shock and shock you again! At first, your eyebrows will raise, then your jaw will drop, you will need to discuss Laura's actions with somebody (anybody!) and you will probably feel like throwing the book across the room at various points - this being so, it would make for an amazing buddy read or book club novel. And the final twist made me smile, but in a way almost as twisted as Laura herself. I do hope we get a sequel to this book some time in the future!
I have decided that Mr Marrs is the owner of a very disturbed mind but one which (fortunately for us readers) can transpose these thoughts into the most fabulous psychological thrillers. I'm sure any of you who have read any of his novels will be in total agreement with this - we just cannot wait to find out where his warped mind goes next! I found this novel and What Lies Between Us to be probably the most unsettling of his reads to date purely because they happen in a world we are all familiar with. While his slightly futuristic works are equally as excellent, with that degree of "Tomorrow's World" that we haven't quite caught up with yet, I don't find them quite as harrowing. But that's just my opinion.
I will continue to buy every single novel this author writes as I just know I am going to love being rocked to my core before I've even read the description on the back cover.
PS - please Mr Marrs, can you write a bit quicker? I have an addiction to feed!
About the Author:
John Marrs is an author and former journalist based in London and Northamptonshire. After spending his career interviewing celebrities from the worlds of television, film and music for numerous national newspapers and magazines, he is now a full-time author. His books include No1 bestseller and Netflix series The One, The Passengers, award winning What Lies Between Us and The Good Samaritan.
Social Media Links:
Website: www.johnmarrsauthor.co.uk
X (previously Twitter) @johnmarrs1
Instagram @johnmarrs.author
Facebook at www.facebook.com/johnmarrsauthor.
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