#BlogTour Psychopaths Anonymous by Will Carver

It’s an absolute pleasure to take part in the BlogTour Psychopaths Anonymous by Will Carver. It’s a dark read and a cracking one.

About the Author

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series. He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his  sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his two children. Will’s latest title published by Orenda Books,

The Beresford was published in July. His previous title Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for the Not the Booker Prize, while Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Good Samaritans was book of the year in Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Express, and hit number one on the ebook charts. Follow @will_carver on Twitter

About the book

When AA meetings make her want to drink more, alcoholic murderess Maeve sets up a group for psychopaths. Maeve has everything. A high-powered job, a beautiful home, a string of uncomplicated one-night encounters. She’s also an addict: a functioning alcoholic with a dependence on sex and an insatiable appetite for killing men.

When she can’t find a support group to share her obsession, she creates her own. And Psychopaths Anonymous is born. Friends of Maeve.

Now in a serious relationship, Maeve wants to keep the group a secret. But not everyone in the group adheres to the rules, and when a reckless member raises suspicions with the police, Maeve’s drinking spirals out of control. She needs to stop killing. She needs to close the group. But Maeve can’t seem to quit the things that are bad for her, including her new man…

Review

What’s not to enjoy about the refreshing honesty with which Maeve goes about her daily life. The automatic and expected boxes are ticked to keep up appearances, but what happens when the small moments of truth and pleasure threaten to interfere with the way she runs her life. Can she sustain any kind of long-term relationship or friendship without being swallowed up by the darkness she likes to cater to.

I think I enjoyed this book for all the wrong reasons. At the top of that list is the fact the author peels back the layers of the shallow exteriors and presents a very real reality. In fact I wonder what would or will happen if psychopathic or sociopathic traits become an acceptable part of society? 

Next on the list, and I have mentioned this in a review of a book written by a recovering alcoholic who swallowed the scheme whole and shouted it out to the world, is the way Carver takes AA to task. It doesn’t work, and the statistics are very interesting. It divides the addicted into categories, some of which are set-up to fail like some self-fulfilling prophecy. Not because of the addiction per se, but because of the way it is infused with a cult like dependency on a reverence to religion and God. 

Clearly only the door reading you must accept God and faith into your heart or fail automatically, means everyone who steps through another door is on a fast path to failure. It also means blame and guilt for loss of sobriety has an automatic perpetrator, as opposed to having personal accountability or looking at the cause and not the symptom.

And the third point is the logistical aspect of certain victimology, which should probably raise alarm bells about the writer, if I were so inclined, but I’m not. (My next FoM meeting is coming Wednesday at six pm – just saying.) 

If Friends of Maeve groups start to pop up everywhere we all know whose door to knock on, right? Talk about giving people ideas and some direction in their lives. Trust Carver to create the kind of book that people will probably either feel uncomfortable about or not admit to liking it for being a bit more than a crime read. I loved it. It’s deliciously dark. It lacks any kind of societal norm or boundary. Most importantly it speaks softly to the dark side – they might not acknowledge it, but they are listening. It’s a superb read.

Buy Psychopaths Anonymous at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher ‏: ‎Orenda Books pub date 25 Nov. 2021. Buy at Amazon com. Buy at Orendabooks.

#BlogTour Hinton Hollow Death Trap by Will Carver

Today it’s a pleasure to take part in the BlogTour Hinton Hollow Death Trap by Will Carver.About the Author

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series. He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his two children. Good Samaritans was book of the year in Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Express, and hit number one on the ebook charts.

Follow @will_carver @OrendaBooks on Twitter, on Amazon, on Goodreads, Visit willcarver.net, Buy Hinton Hollow Death Trap

About the book

It’s a small story. A small town with small lives that you would never have heard about if none of this had happened. Hinton Hollow. Population 5,120.

Little Henry Wallace was eight years old and one hundred miles from home before anyone talked to him. His mother placed him on a train with a label around his neck, asking for him to be kept safe for a week, kept away from Hinton Hollow. Because something was coming.

Narrated by Evil itself, Hinton Hollow Death Trip recounts five days in the history of this small rural town, when darkness paid a visit and infected its residents. A visit that made them act in unnatural ways. Prodding at their insecurities. Nudging at their secrets and desires. Coaxing out the malevolence suppressed within them. Showing their true selves.

Making them cheat. Making them steal. Making them kill.

Detective Sergeant Pace had returned to his childhood home. To escape the things he had done in the city. To go back to something simple. But he was not alone. Evil had a plan.

Review

Do you just need a nudge? Are a massage (Carver’s word) away from letting evil sit on your shoulder and whisper soothing words into your ear?

I kinda love it when evil or death pop out of the shadows to narrate a story. It gives the whole premise a different kind of depth and dimension. Evil is kinda like the truth-speaker. The wise old man who tells you tales and in this case he is there to lead DS Pace on a merry chase or is he following him around. Then again perhaps it has been Pace in charge all along.

What’s interesting about this idea of evil walking into or submersing an entire town for a few days and causing chaos, pain, torture and all manners of deeds that wouldn’t otherwise have been perpetrated, is the ring of truth. We all know of places that appear to be suddenly be overrun with erratic behaviour and tragedy. Is it possible that evil in the guise of temporary insanity or a tragic turn of events is actually at fault? Does evil leave a signature we haven’t learnt to decipher yet?

Does it wander in and seep into the soil, contaminate people and places. Manipulate what is already there – to give a little shove to someone who is teetering on the precipice of darkness and evil.

It’s noir, it’s a breath of fresh air, it’s the internal dialogue that follows you around daily and it’s the kind of read you want to disavow because it’s the truth.

I’ll end this review on a note, you’ll have to read the book to understand what it means and kudos to the author for making that point – I don’t stand by. I never have and never will. I have acted.

Buy Hinton Hollow Death Trap at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Oenda Books 12 Jun. 2020. Buy at Amazon com. Buy at Orendabooks.co.uk

Read my review of Good Samaritans and Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver.

#BlogTour Good Samaritans by Will Carver

Today it’s my turn on the BlogTour Good Samaritans by Will Carver. Carver defines the kill in killer and the clean in crime scene in a whole new way.

About the Author

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series (Arrow). He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age 11, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, while working on his next thriller. He lives in Reading with his two children.

Follow @will_carver @OrendaBooks on Twitter

Buy Good Samaritans

About the book

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.

Review

I really do appreciate the kind of opening chapter or pages that seal the deal in an instant. It sounds like such an easy task, however it is surprising how many authors can’t deliver the ‘slap to the face’ approach. It’s usually a case of casting a line, waiting for a bite and slowly drawing a reader in, which is equally compelling, and yet it doesn’t have the same feel or appeal to it.

Sean loves his wife and hates his wife, despises his job and is being driven just a wee bit insane by his insomnia. His only moments of joy are when he connects with strangers in the middle of the night via random phone calls. Hadley is one of the strangers he connects with when she reaches out to find someone to talk to. Someone who will keep her from harming herself. Their story is one of coincidence and also one of fate, then again it might just be fateful for one of them.

It’s kind of ironic that the story suggests that trust is a forgotten character trait and no longer something we can automatically rely on. The message is trust no one, because you just never know who might be hiding behind the seemingly innocent exterior.

The more poignant message in this story, in my opinion, is the one about loneliness. The depths of despair we keep hidden from others, the feeling of being completely and utterly lost and not knowing why or how to fix it. The smiles we fix upon our faces to greet the world every single day, whilst wanting to disappear from the world in equal measures. I think the author captures that particular essence of humanity and relays it, albeit through the eyes of potential killers, in a way we can all relate to.

I’m not quite sure whether it’s a compliment or not, but based on his plot, and all-round worryingly creepy and accurate descriptions of both the killing and the killers, Carver would probably make a highly efficient serial-killer. Just putting that out there into the universe. You just never know when you might need a new career.

Don’t expect it to be pretty or romanticised, this is not only the hardcore reality of pleasure induced by killing, it is also a snapshot moment of the systemic misery and darkness hidden in our society. It’s the kind of psychological thriller that makes you feel sorry for the killer and dislike them all at the same time. Carver defines the kill in killer and the clean in crime scene in a whole new way. Note: One shall no longer be singing three bottles of beer on the wall, from now on it’s bleach…

Buy Good Samaritans at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Orenda Books (15 Sept. 2018)