Overview

A razor-sharp psychological suspense about two librarians whose lives become dangerously intertwined, How Can I Help You explores the dark side of human nature and the dangerous pull of artistic obsession. No one knows Margo's real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library only know 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 countless 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 patron's death in the library bathroom offers a hint of Margo's mysterious past, Patricia can't resist digging deeper even as this new fixation becomes all-consuming.

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Reviews

Sims plumbs the depths of obsession and madness... deftly building the tension until the explosive ending * The Washington Post * Unnerving... How Can I Help You reads like a homage to [Shirley] Jackson's work - and, in its portrait of Patricia, to Jackson herself. Sims's great achievement is to present the two main characters almost as sides of the same coin, colluding in a psychological cat-and-mouse game that only one can win * New York Times * A gripping and dark psychological thriller about two librarians that takes place in a library. Delicious... I read it one sitting -- Harlan Coben A fun and entertaining cat-and-mouse novel... a perfect book for when you just want to sit back, relax, and read about women behaving badly... you'll fly through the pages * Glamour * If you've ever wanted a book that riffs with literary inventiveness... then this suspenseful novel with an ending worthy of a horror story is definitely the read for you * Criminal Element *

Author Information

Laura Sims is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Looker. An award-winning poet, Sims has published four poetry collections; her essays and poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, Conjunctions, Electric Lit, Gulf Coast, and more. She and her family live in New Jersey, where she works part-time as a reference librarian and hosts the library's lecture series.

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