Book Review: How Can I Help You by Laura Sims

 

How Can I Help You

By Laura Sims

This book presents a fascinating cat and mouse game between two intriguing and unlikely protagonists.

Margo is a kind and hearty library assistant. People consider her charming and very helpful. There are a few problems with that. Margo has only been her name for the past couple of years. Before that, she was Jane, a nurse who was present at far more deaths than the average nurse.

Patricia Delmarco (Pa-tree-see-ah) is a new reference librarian, fresh out of grad school. She’s also a writer, or rather, she was. She wrote a novel, edited and polished then sent it out to agents. After numerous rejections, she gave up, stuck it in a drawer, and tried to forget about it. She moved to Carlyle to take the job and get on with her life, but as a librarian, not a writer.

When Patricia meets Margo, she sees what everyone else sees – kind and helpful Margo. She notices they live in the same apartment complex and tries to make friends with her. But there’s something else about Margo, something not quite right.

Then one day, Margo rushes to the aid of a woman in the bathroom who has fallen ill and appears to be dying. But Margo’s idea of helping someone who is dying may not be what anyone else expects.

Patricia starts to wonder.  Using some clues from things Margo has let slip, she figures out who Margo really is. She knows she should tell their boss, or at least the detective who has been nosing around, but she doesn’t want to.

You see, Patricia is inspired and has started writing again.

There’s a very slight mention of how Margo’s mother and stepfather died in a fire when Margo was little. The reader begins to wonder what, exactly, happened? And what Margo might do now, as she becomes more and more unsettled by events, her own actions, and Patricia’s prodding in order to get information and reactions?

I really enjoyed this book. It was a fast read, rather different in the way it used the dual perspectives and what the reader was allowed to know. It’s definitely a thriller rather than a mystery and very entertaining in a dark but humorous way.

By turns, the author is able to make each of the protagonists human and vulnerable, allowing the reader to feel compassion for their situations, then alternate that with horror at what they think and do.

By the end of the book, I began to wonder just how different Margo and Patricia really are?

I would definitely recommend for a rollicking good read for the fall, very appropriate for the Halloween season, though not supernatural in nature.