How Can I Help You
Books | Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense
3.4
Laura Sims
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEARThe New York Times Book Review • Publishers Weekly • CrimeReads • Book RiotA LibraryReads PickThe lives of two librarians become dangerously intertwined in this razor-sharp exploration of human nature and the lure of artistic obsession.No one knows Margo’s real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library know only her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality, and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges.That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo’s subtly sinister edge, and watches her carefully. When a tragic incident in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margo’s mysterious past, Patricia can’t resist digging deeper—even as her new fixation becomes all-consuming and sends both women hurtling toward disaster.Chilling, incisive, and darkly humorous, How Can I Help You is a propulsive work of psychological suspense that asks how far we might go to justify our most monstrous desires.
AD
Buy now:
More Details:
Author
Laura Sims
Pages
256
Publisher
Penguin
Published Date
2023-07-18
ISBN
0593543726 9780593543726
Community ReviewsSee all
"Intriguing idea, execution uneven. Two characters spar in this book: Margo, a librarian who was once a murderous hospital nurse, and Patricia, a newly hired researcher whose dreams of being a published author fell apart. Both meet when they are hired for a local library. Margo lets loose details about what she used to do, giving Patricia enough information to do a search that uncovers the former nurse (whose real name was Jane). Patricia starts to view Margo as a character in a book forming in her mind. I wanted the story to be more electric, more cat-and-mouse chase, but it unfolded differently. Margo was a vile character. "