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.
💛💛💛💛💛
Fun fact (okay, I’ll admit the “fun” is debatable):
There are people who are actually addicted to bleach. I once saw a documentary about a woman who not only cleaned her house and everything in it with bleach, she also bathed in bleach every single day. Her skin, her eyes, her lungs, she was basically killing herself, but she just couldn’t quit. It was the saddest thing ever. I haven’t thought of that woman in years, but for some reason this book brought her back…
I really don’t know what I was thinking, wanting to review this book. I can’t review this book. I can’t. Newbie blogger here, remember. I’m not equipped for this book, I’m light years out of my depth, I have no words. Except holy fuck. But what would Karen say! Oh well, whatevs, I’ll say it anyway: HOLY FUCK, this shit is BANANAS!!!
I thought I had set myself up for disappointment: my expectations were through the roof, what with all the glowing reviews and that enticing cover quote by Sarah Pinborough. And yet. And yet! And yet holy fuck!! This story is deliciously dark, it is sarcastic, it is imbued with this dark sense of humour, it is, uhm, rather, uhm, explicit. The characters are highly dysfunctional, but not in a frustrating way. They don’t make you want to roll your eyes and ponder how freaking irritating you find them, instead they draw you in, making you wonder how much more they can take before they lose the plot completely. They have this air of sadness and loneliness and they all have their own, mostly dysfunctional, way of dealing with that. And all that makes this story soooo bloody addictive. It twists and it turns and if you’re able to predict the outcome, I’ll buy you a bottle of, well, uhm, bleach? Seems appropriate. To be honest, I did predict some of it, but that didn’t spoil my fun in the least. If anything, I was even more anxious to find out whether or not I was right. I wanted to race through it, and I wanted to go slow and savour each and every glorious sentence, all at the same time. Because this novel is not only about the thrills and the shocks, it’s also beautifully written in a very unique writing style that I quite liked.
So what’s it about? I’m not even going to try to tell you: I can’t do this story any justice trying to explain all the craziness and weirdness and darkness and general awesomeness. Instead, I’ll just say this: READ IT. It’ll be the weirdest, craziest thing you’ll read this year. It may very well be the weirdest, craziest thing you’ll read this decade. So put it on your TBR list, put it on your Christmas list, put it on any list, put it on ALL the lists, and find out for yourself why every single person who's read it has been gushing over it.
Very highly recommended